Suchomimus

Suchomimus; Temporal range: Early Cretaceous (Barremian to Albian),
	Reconstructed skeleton at the Chicago Children's Museum
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Family:	†Spinosauridae
Clade:	†Ceratosuchopsini
Genus:	†Suchomimus; Sereno et al., 1998
Type species
	†Suchomimus tenerensis; Sereno et al., 1998
Synonyms
	Baryonyx tenerensis (Sereno et al., 1998) Sues et al., 2002 [originally Suchomimus];

Suchomimus (meaning "crocodile mimic") is a genus of spinosaur dinosaur that lived between 125 and 112 million years ago in what is now Niger, north Africa, during the Aptian to early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous period. It was named and described by paleontologist Paul Sereno and colleagues in 1998, based on a partial skeleton from the Elrhaz Formation. 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 Dese.

Suchomimus was a relatively large theropod, reaching 9.5–11 metres (31–36 ft) in length and weighing 2.5–3.8 metric tons (2.8–4.2 short tons). However, the age of the holotype specimen is uncertain, so it is unclear whether this size estimate would have been its maximum. The narrow head of Suchomimus was perched on a short neck, and its forelimbs were powerfully built, bearing a giant claw on each thumb. Along the midline of the animal's back ran a low dorsal sail, built from the long neural spines of its vertebrae. Like other spinosaurids, it likely had a diet of fish, eels, rays and smaller prey animals.

Some palaeontologists consider the genus to be an African species of the European spinosaurid Baryonyx, B. tenerensis. Suchomimus might also be a junior synonym of the contemporaneous spinosaurid Cristatusaurus lapparenti, although the latter taxon is based on much more fragmentary remains. Suchomimus lived in a fluvial environment of vast floodplains alongside many other dinosaurs, in addition to pterosaurs, crocodylomorphs, bony fishes, testudines, and bivalves.