


Additionally, several specimens have been assigned as paratypes: MNN GDF 501 to 508 include a snout, a quadrate from the back of the skull, three dentaries (tooth-bearing bones of the lower jaw), an axis (second neck vertebra), a rear cervical vertebra, and a rear dorsal vertebra. Parts of the skeleton had been exposed on the desert surface and had suffered erosion damage. The spinal column was largely articulated, the remainder consisted of disarticulated bones.

It contains three neck ribs, parts of fourteen dorsal (back) vertebrae, ten dorsal ribs, gastralia (or "belly ribs"), pieces of three sacral vertebrae, parts of twelve caudal (tail) vertebrae, chevrons (bones that form the underside of the tail), a scapula (shoulder blade), a coracoid, a partial forelimb, most of the pelvis (hip bone), and parts of a hindlimb. It consists of a partial skeleton lacking the skull. The holotype, MNN GDF500, was found in the Tegama Beds of the Elrhaz Formation. Outcrops of the Erlhaz Formation, ( Gadoufaoua in lower right) Suchomimus lived in a fluvial environment of vast floodplains alongside many other dinosaurs, in addition to pterosaurs, crocodylomorphs, fish, turtles, and bivalves. Suchomimus might also be a junior synonym of the contemporaneous spinosaurid Cristatusaurus lapparenti, although the latter taxon is based on much more fragmentary remains. Some palaeontologists consider the animal to be an African species of the European spinosaurid Baryonyx, B. Like other spinosaurids, it likely had a diet of fish and small prey animals. Along the midline of the animal's back ran a low dorsal sail, built from the long neural spines of its vertebrae. Suchomimus's narrow skull was perched on a short neck, and its forelimbs were powerfully built, bearing a giant claw on each thumb. Suchomimus was 9.5 to 11 metres (31 to 36 feet) long and weighed between 2.5 to 5.2 tonnes (2.8 to 5.7 short tons), although the holotype specimen may not have been fully grown. Suchomimus's long and shallow skull, similar to that of a crocodile, earns it its generic name, while the specific name Suchomimus tenerensis alludes to the locality of its first remains, the Ténéré Desert. The animal was named and described by palaeontologist Paul Sereno and colleagues in 1998, based on a partial skeleton from the Elrhaz Formation. Suchomimus (meaning "crocodile mimic") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived between 125 and 112 million years ago in what is now Niger, during the Aptian to early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous period.
