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.
