Science Art: Ceratosuchops inferodios life reconstruction, by PaleoGeekSquared

Scientific Illustration of a kind of spinosaur known as the "hell heron."
Scientific Illustration of a kind of spinosaur known as the "hell heron."

This is a kind of spinosaur-ancestor dubbed “the hell heron” by some dramatically minded scientists. C. inferodios was identified in 2021 from some fossil fragments in the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight. Not much is known about spinosaurs because, well, they’re pretty old (Early Cretaceous) and the bits we do find are pretty broken up.

The name “Ceratosuchops” means “horned crocodile face” because… well, because of its face. The name “inferodios” means “hell heron” not because of its face, but because of what the scientists could conclude about the time and place where it lived and hunted, along the banks of rivers now long dry and littered with bones.