Suchomimus tenerensis

With a face like that, it would have to be a "crocodile mimic".

Suchomimus was discovered in the Tenere Desert of the west-central African country of Niger.  Africa is a continent that is poorly understood in terms of dinosaur evolution. But this discovery along with Spinosaurus from Egypt in 1915, and Baryonix from England in 1983,  have helped piece together a picture of the therapod group Spinosauridae.

The skull features of Suchomimus point to a snatch  and  secure hunting style. Eating slippery prey items such as fish, large eels or something we just do not know of yet.

The head was very narrow and filled with about a hundred small conical shaped teeth, much like a crocodile. This kind of tooth shape is good for puncturing and gripping as opposed to tearing. It also helps that the upper and lower teeth meshed together squarely to hold prey firmly once grabbed . The skull also has a hard palate separating the mouth from the nasal passages helping to reinforce the narrow skull from stress forces created by struggling prey and head shaking. It is possible that Suchomimus had a large gular or throat pouch, perhaps similar to what pelicans have, that expanded to hold large fish just prior to being swallowed head first, considering the narrowness of the jaws.

Suchomimus was found in rocks about a hundred million years old, putting it in the lower Cretaceous period. The skeleton was 36 feet long and is not considered to be full grown. The humerus, radius and ulna (arm bones) had very large flaring crests, especially at the elbow joint, which served as attachment sites for obviously huge muscles. The fingers were tipped with equally massive claws: The thumb claw alone was 16 inches long! These arms must have played an important role in grappling prey. Perhaps the arms helped to tear off huge chunks from prey that was too large to swallow whole.  Suchomimus was obviously powerful enough to subdue large animals.Another curious feature were the tall neural spines of the vertebrae.  Their function is open to  speculation. see the page on Acrocanthosaurus for more discussion on these strange vertebrae.