Spinosaurus Versus T. rex

A rivalry 65 million (or so) years in the making.

After its appearance in Jurassic Park III made it famous, the Spinosaurus has become one of the stock dinosaurs and appears in plenty of media. However, because of its notorious fight against a Tyrannosaurus rex in the movie, it seems that pretty much every time a Spino shows up somewhere, it is required to have a confrontation with a T. rex. Every. Single. Time.

Due to the Spinosaurus's victory from the movie being rather controversial to say the least, most (but not all) of the following fights have the T. rex winning instead, usually as an obvious Take That! to the film. For the same reason, the Spino tends to be often portrayed as the "villain" between the two dinosaurs (though this can also be partly attributed to the fact that the Spinosaurus has a more sinister, crocodile-esque appearance compared to the Tyrannosaurus).

Note that in Real Life, such a fight could never have happened considering the two dinosaurs lived at different periods (they were separated by over 30 million years), on different continents (Tyrannosaurus lived in North America while Spinosaurus lived in North Africa), and that since The New '10s Spinosaurus has been discovered to be an amphibious predator with a very different body type, including a finned tail. See here and here. If such a fight between these two animals were ever to take place, the outcome would greatly depend on the environment: the Tyrannosaurus would be heavily favored on land, while the Spinosaurus would dominate in the water.

It bears mentioning there was in fact another predatory dinosaur that did coexist with Spinosaurus named Carcharodontosaurus, which was actually similar in size to Tyrannosaurus, and occupied a similar ecological niche. However, it doesn't have nearly the cultural pull the latter has, so this is rarely referenced. It also bears noting that while it did live in the same time and place, Carcharodontosaurus is believed to have lived in a different habitat (probably drier, more open terrain than the wetlands), and have hunted different prey than Spinosaurus (the former was an obligate carnivore that hunted other dinosaurs, while the other was primarily a piscivore), so there likely wasn't much actual competition between the two (although that doesn't stop some documentaries, like Monsters Resurrected and Planet Dinosaur, from depicting fights between the two anyway). In fact, the most popular theory for Spinosaurus's ancestors adapting to an aquatic lifestyle was precisely due to fierce competition from land-based predators for the same prey items.

See also Animal Jingoism, Behemoth Battle, Cool Versus Awesome, The Worf Effect (either the Tyrannosaurus or the Spinosaurus may fall into this), Stock Shout-Outs, Take That!, and Unpleasant Animal Counterpart (the Spinosaurus usually being the unpleasant one).

Compare Primate Versus Reptile, another Stock Shout-Out inspired by a fight scene involving a T. rex from a different movie. See also Savage Spinosaurs and Terrifying Tyrannosaur for the combatants themselves.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: In the theme song of Season 2, there is a brief shot of a Tyrannosaurus biting the neck of a Spinosaurus during the montage of predator-prey conflicts.
• Doraemon seems to really like this trope:
  • In the episode "Running Away to the Cretaceous Period" of the 2005 anime series, Suneo gets lost in prehistoric times and befriends a Tyrannosaurus. Towards the end, he is attacked by a hungry Spinosaurus, but the T. rex comes to his rescue. The two reptiles first circle around each other, and then run at one another. Like in Jurassic Park III, the Spino manages to put down its opponent by biting its neck and tries to twist it. However, Suneo and Doraemon make noise to attract his attention, so it goes after them instead of finishing off the Tyrannosaurus. Before it can devour them, the T. rex thankfully gets up, rushes headlong at the Spinosaurus and pushes it off a cliff with a headbutt.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur: During the climax, the dinosaur hunters unleash their pet Spinosaurus to kill the heroes and their tamed Tyrannosaurus. The T. rex goes face the Spino, and the two have a fight suspiciously similar to the one from Jurassic Park III. First, the Tyrannosaurus headbutts its opponent, then the two dinosaurs try to bite each other. Eventually, the Spinosaurus succeeds in biting its enemy's neck and starts gripping it with its arms (probably in order to kill it in the same way that in JPIII), however this time the Tyrannosaurus manages to free itself and overpower its foe, effectively sending it crashing against a wall. While it survives, the Spino is unable to get back on its feet despite its masters' insistence and lashes, and is arrested along with them by the Time Patrol shortly after.
• Dinosaur King:
  • A quick fight between Spiny the Spinosaurus and Terry the Tyrannosaurus happens during Episode Two. When Spiny is discovered in Egypt, the Alpha Gang sends Terry to attack and capture him. The two beasts start roaring at each other, then Terry charges his adversary and strikes him with his head, sending him flying a few meters away. Defeated, Spiny returns to his card which is promptly reclaimed by the Alpha Gang. Once again, the fact that the Spinosaurus got beaten so easily by the T. rex is clearly meant to be a Take That! to Jurassic Park III, but at least this is a rare case where the Spino is arguably the less villainous of the two fighters.
  • Inverted during the rest of the series, as Spiny becomes one of the primary dinosaurs of the Alpha Gang and therefore Terry's ally, even fighting alongside him against other dinosaurs on occasions.
  • Played straight again in the finale of Series 1 (although the JPIII reference isn't as obvious this time), as Spiny is one of the numerous dinosaurs that take part in the battle against the Black Tyrannosaurus and join their forces to defeat him. It's also inverted at the same time, considering Terry is fighting at his side.
• Reborn! (2004): Inverted. Kikyou, who has Spinosaurus powers, and Zakuro, who has Tyrannosaurus powers, are actually on the same side. The closest thing we got to a fight between the two is when Mukuro takes control of some of Kikyou's Spino heads and uses them to attack Zakuro.
• Jurassic Gakuen both subverts this trope and invokes it. It takes place in a prehistoric high school for anthropomorphic dinosaurs, with the main characters being a male Spinosaurus and a female Tyrannosaurus. They are friends, but the final panel shows their skeletons in a museum, in a fighting pose.
• Zoids Wild Zero, features Humongous Mecha called Zoids. The series' first Arc Villain, Geno Spino, is pressed into battle against the second one, Omega Rex. In both brawls, Geno Spino puts in a valiant effort but ultimately it is no match for Omega Rex.
• Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead: In Chapters 28-29, a horde of zombies attack a dinosaur museum and get entangled within some of the fossils, thus making them pseudo-zombie dinosaurs. One of them is a Spinosaurus, so Akira takes control of an animatronic Tyrannosaurus modified by Lambda Chop to fight it. The Zombie Spinosaurus initially dominates the fight thanks to its larger size, but Akira receives encouragement from his friends and ultimately manages to defeat it.

Asian Animation

• Dino Master: This shows up several times. During the course of both the show and its sequel Dino Master Enigma, Touch's blue Tyrannosaurus rex and Feel's red Spinosaurus are pitted against one another on more than one occasion (it's notable that just like most of the creatures from the show, both of them have Godzilla's roar, for some reasons...).
  • In particular, Touch and Feel have a card duel in the penultimate episode of Dino Master Enigma during which Touch sends his Tyrannosaurus against Feel's Spinosaurus after the latter has beaten his Giganotosaurus, and the two dinos have a rather lengthy battle. Unusually, the fight is fairly even, with each combatants headbutting, striking with their tail, biting and using their special moves on the other, culminating into a Beam-O-War. Ultimately, the T. rex manages to bite and crush its opponent's neck, resulting in the Spino's defeat once again.
  • Another episode has the protagonists' teacher showing her class a video presenting the Tyrannosaurus and the Spinosaurus that ends with the two dinosaurs running at each other and having a clash.
• Dino Mecard: Downplayed in episode 52. The heroes use a Spinosaurus among many of their dinosaurs to fight the villains' three dinosaurs, an Ankylosaurus, a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus. However, there is little direct confrontation between the T. rex and the Spino, except for when the Tyrannosaurus becomes the villains' only remaining combatant and goes to smash all its enemies at once, including the Spinosaurus. It's an odd example, though, in that the Spinosaurus is portrayed as the hero for once.
  • Both Inverted and Played Straight in the movie Dino Mecard: The Island Of Tinysaurs. Tyrano the Tyrannosaurus and Spino the Spinosaurus are portrayed as good friends. However, when Tyrano is Brainwashed and Crazy by the villains, he attacks his former dino friends and gets into a brief brawl with Spino. The two theropods run headlong into each other and try to push each other off. Spino does his best to hold his ground, but he ends up being pushed back by his opponent (though he's not defeated yet). Once again, it's one of the few instances of the Spinosaurus being portrayed as the more heroic fighter.

Card Games

• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Subverted in the "Dinomists Howling" card illustration, which depicts two machines based on a T. rex and a Spinosaurus roaring menacingly while the battlefield is devastated by a volcanic eruption. Since the card's effect is to fetch two Dinomist monsters in order to protect the field, it's implied that the robots are actually working together to shield their allies from the cataclysm.

Comic Books

• Batman: This trope is referenced by the character of Ghost-Maker, who tries to prove himself Batman's superior. Since Batman has a T. rex in the Batcave, Ghost-Maker has a Spinosaurus in his own lair, just because he wanted something bigger.
• Les Dinosaures:
  • Parodied in the first volume during the one-page gag appropriately named "Spinosaurus vs. Tyrannosaurus rex". A T. rex and a Spino spend half the page in their corner preparing to challenge the other... only to then realize that this fight cannot happen since they both live in different time periods.
  • The first page of the fourth volume also has a Spinosaurus recalling proudly how he wiped the floor with the Tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park III.
• Godzilla: Rulers of Earth:
  • During a flashback in the ninth issue, a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus are shown squaring off over the carcass of a dead Triceratops. As they are about to fight, the two dinos are suddenly devoured in one bite by an even larger theropod, the Kaiju Gorosaurus.
  • The cover image of the twenty-second issue features a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus seemingly having a quarrel in front of Gorosaurus while they are accompanied by other dinosaurs. This never happens in the issue, though.
• Venom : The Spinosaurus/T. rex rivalry is discussed during a flashback at the beginning of Issue 152 of Volume 1, in which a bully breaks young Eddie's T. rex toy while telling him that Spinosaurus are cooler because they are bigger and stronger than Tyrannosaurus, and that he and his toy are too wimpy to get into real dinosaur fights.
  Bully: Pfff. T-Rexes are lame, Spaghetti. Spinosaurus was way bigger and stronger!

Documentaries

• Bizarre Dinosaurs:
  • While this trope is usually Averted in most documentaries for obvious reasons, it is present here. Just after being described as being bigger than T. rex, a Spinosaurus is shown having an encounter with a Tyrannosaurus towards the beginning. The T. rex makes a growl, but the Spino straightens up and roars menacingly. Terrified, the Tyrannosaurus turns the other way and starts running for its life.
  • Furthermore, the documentary mentions how the Spinosaurus stole the show from the T. rex in Jurassic Park III by killing one, and shows images from the movie of the Spino standing above the corpse of the defeated Tyrannosaurus while paleontologist Jack Horner explains that he recommended Steven Spielberg to use the Spinosaurus in the film and get rid of T. rex, as it has enough press already.

Eastern European Animation

• Pangea – The Neverending World:
  • Towards the end of the first short, a baby Tyrannosaurus named Rexy ventures into a gloomy swamp where he crosses path with an enormous Spinosaurus. Upon seeing him, the Spino immediately tries to devour the helpless young T. rex. Thankfully, Rexy's mother arrives just in time to save her baby and manages to drive the Spinosaurus away.
  • The main plot of "Rexy meets the Mountain King" is built around this trope. Rexy meets a baby Spinosaurus and tries to befriend him, but his father the eponymous Mountain King acts hostile towards him. Rexy's father then arrives and confronts the Mountain King to protect his son. However, after seeing that their children are getting along, the adults also put their conflict aside.

Fan Films

• Jurassic Park: Prime Survival: The main characters encounter a Tyrannosaurus on several occasions and witness a confrontation between it and a Spinosaurus late in the movie (both dinosaurs look almost exactly like those from the film series). Oddly enough, their fight happens in the inverse way that it did in Jurassic Park III. After scratching its head with its claws, the Spino bites its adversary and puts it on the ground, only for the T. rex to get up in a short time and strike back. This time, the Tyrannosaurus is the one that ends up grabbing its opponent's neck in its jaws and performing a Neck Snap to kill it. The Spinosaurus's corpse then falls next to the protagonists while the T. rex roars triumphantly.
• Jurassic Park -- Life Finds A Way: At the end, a Spinosaurus attacks the two protagonists, but it gets interrupted when a Tyrannosaurus suddenly appears. The two beasts roar aggressively and then run at each other to have a vicious fight. What ensues is a Curb-Stomp Battle in the T. rex's favor, with the Spino not even landing a single hit (in its defense, it had just been hit by a flare's explosion, so it probably wasn't in the best of shape). The Tyrannosaurus bites its opponent's neck several times, headbutts it, and finally throws it against a tree, causing it to fall on the ground. Right after, the rex breaks the Spinosaurus's leg before doing the same with its neck, killing it.

Fan Works

• The Bridge: Subverted with the Lost World RPG and extended short stories detailing the Jurassic Park side of the Amalgam'verse. While the parent T. rex from The Lost World and the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III both appear, they don't fight or encounter one another. The Spinosaurus, nicknamed "Snoke" by the players, does however fight the hybrid "Ultimasaurus" which is based off a Tyrannosaurus and is presented in a rare anti-heroic role when the players help it kill the hybrid monster. The prequel short story "Emperor of Sorna" plays the ideas for the third film straight, where Dr. Wu intentionally engineered the Spinosaurus as a hybrid itself to control the Tyrannosaurus population so they didn't overrun the ecosystem by being their natural counter; this is why it's much stronger or resilient than a normal Spinosaurus. While neither species is presented as any better or worse than normal animals, the "Snoke" is considered a crucial part to maintaining the Isla Sorna ecosystem.
• Dinosaur King: Retold: Inverted. Terry and Spiny are allies and friends — only they're on the D-Team's side this time. The worst they get is Terry occasionally being annoyed by Spiny teasing him.
• It's not the Raptor DNA: It shows up fairly often:
  • Sobek, the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III, has fought and killed several T. rexes, including the one who tried to attack Bridges's mother in the past. His ultimate goal is to challenge Rexy, the Tyrannosaurus from the first Jurassic Park, who is considered to be the most powerful of all. In Chapter 70, he finally gets his wish and manages to put up a good fight against her, but he ends up losing. However, he survives and is quite pleased with the fight, to the point that he befriends Rexy afterwards and agrees to share his territory with her.
  • Years ago, a female Spinosaurus named Madre del Diablo was brought to Jurassic World, but she broke out her paddock on her first day and tried to pick a fight against Rexy. Predictably, she got promptly killed by the seasoned Tyrannosaurus, and her skeleton was subsequently put on display in the Main Street plaza.
  • Carnifex, the son of the two aforementioned Spinosaurus, frequently kills juvenile T. rexes that his master Bridges feeds him with. Unlike his father Sobek, he has no respect towards them and views them as easy kills. However, he eventually faces off Limper (the baby Tyrannosaurus from The Lost World: Jurassic Park all grown up) and gets thrashed so brutally that he flees in terror into the jungle. Thereafter, he starts reconsidering his opinion about T. rexes.
• Jurassic World: The Animated Series:
  • Discussed. During the second episode, the Team discovers a Spinosaurus in South Africa and Allan Grant has a conversation with Zia in which he recalls how much the one he encountered was aggressive towards Tyrannosaurus. Apparently, this was because it was actually a hybrid between a Spinosaurus aegypticus and a Tyrannosaurus rex (nicknamed Spinosaurus rex by Grant), and the T. rexes are known to be extremely territorial.
  • In addition, both the sixth and seventh episodes' opening credits include a scene of Zia witnessing Rexy and the Spinosaurus rex roaring at each other defiantly in the middle of the savannah, probably about to have a fight.
• Prehistoric Park Reimagined: Over the course of the titular breakout that occurs in the Phase 2 finale Breakout!, Tut the Spinosaurus and Terrence the T. rex end up engaging in a vicious duel while they're both outside their respective paddocks after the latter unwittingly disturbs the former in his efforts at hunting for catfish in the moat between the park's main entrance zone and the rest of the park. Since the both of them are merely confused animals following their instincts in an unfamiliar environment (and who find each other unfamiliar due to being from separate continents, environments, and even specific periods of time within the Cretaceous Period back in the wild), neither of them is portrayed as particularly heroic or villainous. And while Terrence does manage to deal some decent wounds against Tut, and later receive some assistance close to the end from his Majungasaurus companion Mahazatra, it is nonetheless made clear that Tut would be more than capable of defeating him (and Mahazatra) in the duel by virtue of Tut himself being both bigger and more experienced in combat via his older age while Terrence and Mahazatra are both still adolescents. Fortunately, the fight ends up brought to a nonviolent end after the unexpected arrival of Uilleam, who subsequently bewilders the three theropods into ending the conflict by trying to challenge them to do battle with him. Unlike most examples of this trope, Tut and Terrence are both portrayed fairly accurately to how their respective species are currently viewed by modern standards of paleontology, with Terrence having a sparse covering of feathers on certain areas of his body instead of being completely scaly with no feathers whatsoever and Tut having the short legs and finned tail that his species is now known to have possessed instead of the long legs and traditionally reptilian tail his species was thought to have had back in the '90s and the 2000s.
• Shinnen New Year:
  • The Spinosaurus from JP III appears in Ch. 29, where it has been brainwashed and empowered by purple Apocalypse Virus crystals (which gave it three horns on its forehead and spikes all over its body), and teams up with The Big One (the Velociraptor leader from the first film) to fight Rexy and Blue (you can guess who fight who). During its fight against Rexy, both dinosaurs repeatedly bites, claws, strikes with their tail and headbutts each other, but at the end Rexy manages to throw the Spino off the platform they were on, causing it to die from the fall.
  • In Ch. 34, various scenes from Jurassic World are depicted, including the scene of Rexy destroying the Spinosaurus skeleton.

Films — Animation

• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: While officially supposed to be a Baryonyx (which is still a member of the Spinosauridae family anyway), Rudy is really more of a Spinosaurus without a sail, not only due to his appearance but even moreso because he's even bigger than a T. rex. He attacks the protagonists in the climax of the movie, but Momma Rex comes to their rescue and engages in a brief brawl with him, during which she starts by headbutting him before forcefully pushing him through the jungle while he tries to strike her with his claws and bite her. She eventually wins the fight by knocking Rudy off a cliff, though he manages to survive. This may or may not be a Take That! against the Spinosaurus/Tyrannosaurus fight from Jurassic Park III.

Films — Live-Action

• Adhisaya Ulagam: When the protagonists are about to make their time machine work and return to the present day in the climax, a Spinosaurus appears and goes after them. However, a Tyrannosaurus rex suddenly comes out of nowhere and attacks it, leading to a ferocious battle between the two dinosaurs. Contrary to expectations, their fight is rather long (or at least, longer than the one from Jurassic Park III and most of the other examples on this page) and involves a lot of the two dinos biting, striking with their head or tail, and pushing the other to the ground. Finally, the Tyrannosaurus bites the Spinosaurus's sail and roars fiercely, causing the Spino to walk away while the T. rex chases it.
• Jurassic Park:
  • Jurassic Park III is the very reason this trope exists. Shortly after their arrival on Isla Sorna, the Spinosaurus attacks the plane of Dr. Allan Grant and his group, and then starts pursuing them through the jungle. Dr. Grant and the others eventually bump into a Tyrannosaurus, which decides to chase them as well. When the two gigantic theropods are brought face to face, they roar defiantly and charge at each other to have a fight. The T. rex is the first to strike, biting its opponent's neck and putting it to the ground. However, after a brief struggle the Spino manages to get up and free itself, knocking down a few trees in the process, and snaps at its adversary. Then, the two dinosaurs try to bite eack other's flanks, and the Spino strikes the T. rex's leg with its claws. The Tyrannosaurus retaliates by headbutting the Spino, pushing it forward, but the Spinosaurus takes the opportunity to out-maneuver the T. rex and bite its neck. It proceeds to use its jaws and arms to twist its rival's neck, killing it instantly. The dead body of the Tyrannosaurus tumbles to the ground, and the Spinosaurus places its hands on it before making a triumphant roar.
  • Jurassic World: The Tyrannosaurus/Spinosaurus rivalry receives a nod at the end of the film when Rexy (the Tyrannosaurus from the first Jurassic Park) destroys a Spinosaurus skeleton shortly before her fight against the Indominus rex, as a Take That! to the previous movie.
  • Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom:
    • As shown in some concept arts, a Spinosaurus was supposed to make an appearance during the stampede scene, apparently to have a fight with Rexy and get killed. In the equivalent scene in the finished movie, its place is taken by a much smaller Carnotaurus.
    • In the virtual reality program Jurassic World: Blue developed for the movie, a Baryonyx (a smaller member of the Spinosauridae family) tries to attack Rexy to protect its nest. However, the Tyrannosaurus brutally knocks it away with her head, presumably killing it.
  • Jurassic World Dominion: According to Word of God, the movie was initially supposed to end with Rexy and the T. rex family from The Lost World fighting against the Spinosaurus and the Giganotosaurus. However, this idea was ultimately scrapped because it was deemed too overwhelming. In the finished film, the climax only has Rexy teaming up with a Therizinosaurus to fight the Giganotosaurus.
• Transformers: Age of Extinction:
  • Implied. During the second scene of the film, the corpses of a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus are discovered next to each other by geologists somewhere in the Arctic (which is a huge case of Artistic License – Paleontology since neither of them lived there), both covered in the metallic substance called Transformium (oddly, no Spino or T. rex were shown in the opening scene when the Creators cyberformed the dinosaurs). Considering the aggressive and territorial behaviors of the two species, it's very likely they were having a fight before their deaths.
  • Inverted with the Dinobots Grimlock and Scorn. Despite turning into a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus respectively, they are teammates who frequently fight side-by-side.
• Terror of Mechagodzilla has an instance of this trope that predates Jurassic Park III by 26 years. Godzilla, who is a bulky theropod modeled after T. rex, battles Titanosaurus, a fictional Spinosaurus-esque dinosaur with a slender build, a sail on its back and a long, crocodilian snout. Titanosaurus appears to be more powerful than Godzilla, though it's hard to say for sure given that it also has Mechagodzilla helping it. Godzilla is only able to defeat the other monster after the human characters exploit its weakness to supersonic waves. Amusingly, Titanosaurus has a distinctive paddle-shaped tail, even though Spinosaurus wouldn't be determined to have that trait for several more decades.

Literature

• Lost, a Dinotopia novel by Alan Dean Foster has an example five years before Jurassic Park III popularized the trope that is pretty funny in retrospect. A pair of Tyrannosaurus rex confronts a pair of Spinosaurus who are portrayed as smaller predators who cower before them.
• Jurassic Park:
  • The battle between the Spinosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus is present in the Jurassic Park III junior novelization by Scott Ciencin.
  • The fight also occurs in Jurassic Park III Movie Storybook, although it happens a bit differently than in the film. In this version, the two dinosaurs start by circling around each other while roaring loudly. The Tyrannosaurus is the first to attack and uses its tail to hit the Spinosaurus, which then retaliates by biting its opponent in the throat, injuring it. The two dinos continue to fight afterward, but the protagonists take the opportunity to flee the scene, leaving the winner unclear (though it's easy to assume it was the Spino just like in the movie, considering it reappears later on, unlike the T. rex).
  • Jurassic Park: Adventures:
    • Oddly averted in Jurassic Park Adventures: Survivor. Despite telling the story of the few months that Eric Kirby spent on Isla Sorna, the Spinosaurus is completely absent, including when Eric got the Tyrannosaurus's urine (even though he stated in the movie that this urine tends to attract the Spino).
    • Possibly alluded in Jurassic Park Adventures: Flyers. In the first chapters, Alan Grant participates in the capture of a Spinosaurus to relocate it in another part of the island, and explains to Roger Hearne that this specimen was eradicating numerous other dinosaur species in the area. Considering the Spino's attitude towards T. rexes in the movie, it is very possible that Tyrannosaurus was one of the species Dr. Grant was talking about.
• The Spanish dinosaur novel Desextinción has an alpha male T. rex fighting against a father male Spinosaurus which he kills and eats.
• Probably the earliest example comes from one instalment published in 1988 of a storybook series created by Rourke Publishing, where in one spread◊, a Spinosaurus about to scavenge a sauropod carcass is confronted by a T. rex.

Live-Action TV

• Dino Dan:
  • Downplayed in "Ready? Set? Dino!", where a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus compete for the same prey and have a dispute in front of Dan, although they don't exactly come to blows and simply roar at each other instead. Later in the episode, Dan sets up a race opposing the two dinosaurs in order to determine which one is the fastest. The T. rex ends up winning, if only by a few seconds.
  • Played Straight in Dino Dana: The Movie, where a mother Tyrannosaurus battles a Spinosaurus on a few occasions to protect the main characters, mistaking them for her children. Commendably, the Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus are based on modern restorations, the former being sparsely-feathered and the latter possessing short legs and a tail fin.
• Super Sentai:
  • Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: The Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: Gaburincho of Music movie contains an action scene in which Tobaspino (who's a Spinosaurus converted into a Humongous Mecha) fights against the Zyudenryu in the middle of the city, including Gabutyra (who's based on a Tyrannosaurus). The confrontation between the two is strikingly similar to the Jurassic Park III fight, as Gabutyra first attacks his foe by biting his head, only for him to quickly break free and push him away. Then, both fighters try to bite the other, and Tobaspino manages to bite his rival onto his neck. The Spino subsequently throws the T. rex against a building, thus winning the fight for once.
  • Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger: Downplayed. The Land, Sea, Sky trio of primary kishiryu are Tyramigo (T. rex), MosaRex (Mosasaurus) and Pterardon (Pteranodon). Tyramigo is used by the main team, while MosaRex is used by the Sixth Ranger... and can combine with the limbs and sail of a Dimetrodon-based mecha to become the more powerful SpinoThunder (a Spinosaurus with electric powers).

Pinball

• Jurassic Park (Stern): A fight between a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus takes place during "King of the Island Multiball".

Theme Parks

• The statues of a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus fighting one another are featured in The Lost World theme park of Universal Studios Singapore.

Video Games

• Horizon Forbidden West: The Slaughterspine is a new machine that shows up in the game based on a Spinosaus that's a larger and deadlier foe than the Thunderjaw from the first game, which is based on a T. rex. In the vanilla game, there's no way to get the two to fight because there aren't any areas where they spawn close together, but in the DLC Burning Shores there's a place where the two machines spawn next to each other, presumably at least in part so you can override one in order to enact this trope. Whichever one Aloy overrides will most likely be the winner.
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Like the movie, the game ends with the monstrous Baryonyx Rudy attacking the heroes, only for Momma Rex to show up and hit him with her head before engaging the fight against him. This time, their confrontation is actually quite longer and involves the two dinosaurs constantly trying to bite and strike each other, while the player has to help Momma in defeating Rudy. The fight still ends up in the same way though, with Momma winning by pushing Rudy off a cliff (and him being revealed to be alive shortly after).
• Jurassic Park:
  • In the 1999 fighting style video game Warpath: Jurassic Park, the Spinosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus rex are among the playable dinosaurs, and the two can fight one another at any time.
  • Jurassic Park III: Dino Defender: Towards the end of Level 4, the Spinosaurus attacks the player, who has to flee away from it by climbing to the highest vines. The Spino still tries to reach him, but the Tyrannosaurus shows up and roars at it defiantly. The T. rex gets closer and snaps at its enemy, who makes a growl in response. The player takes this opportunity to escape, while the two dinosaurs are fighting each other. Even though most of their fight is unseen, it's implied the Tyrannosaurus won since he starts chasing the player shortly after (it could also have been a draw, considering the Spinosaurus also reappears alive and well in the last two levels).
  • Jurassic Park (Arcade): At the end of the first level, a Spinosaurus attacks the camp of the player, who has to shoot at it. When its health bar is exhausted, a T. rex arrives and roars at the Spino. The two dinos then engage in a fight during which they repeatedly bite each other's necks, while the player uses the opportunity to escape in a jeep. This time, it's left unclear who actually won the fight (both dinosaurs reappear alive later in the game, but it's unknown if they're the same individuals or not).
  • Jurassic Park: Dinosaur Battles features both the Spinosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus among the dinosaurs who can fight each other. The game's cover even shows a Spino attacking a T. rex.
  • Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis: The cover features a fight between the Spinosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus in the middle of the jungle. Both dinosaurs appear in the game, and they tend to battle each other for territorial reasons whenever they meet, though any of them can end up as the victor. It's possible for them to coexist peacefully for a short period of time, but sooner or later the two will eventually fight to the death.
  • Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus are some of the available dinosaurs in Jurassic Park Builder, so any of them can fight the other during the game.
  • In the fourth level of 2015 Jurassic Park (Arcade), the player is on a mission to capture a Tyrannosaurus rex. When they find one, it's in the middle of a fight against a Spinosaurus. After they roar at each other, the Spino pounces on its opponent and tries to bite it, but the T. rex manages to dodge. The rex then grabs the Spinosaurus's neck with its jaws and drags it to the edge of a cliff where it pushes it over.
  • Jurassic World: The Game: It's possible to create Spinosaurus or T. rex in this mobile simulator and have one of the two fight the other at any point during the game.
  • LEGO Jurassic World:
    • In the Jurassic Park III section, Dr. Grant and the others are chased by the Spinosaurus after their plane crash and encounter a T. rex, leading the two predators to have a vicious battle. After roaring aggressively, both dinos go on the attack and repeatedly try to bite, scratch and headbutt each other. The Spino eventually bites the Tyrannosaurus's neck and puts it on the ground, but the protagonists decide to help it (seeing it as the lesser threat) by distracting the Spinosaurus. Thanks to their help, the T. rex gets back on its feet and resume the fight. Both dinosaurs manage to overpower the other several times (usually by grabbing the other's neck and tossing it around), with the player constantly helping the rex in various ways when it's losing. In the end, the protagonists flee the scene by running between the two dinos while they are busy fighting. We don't see who wins the battle this time, though the fact that the Spino reappears afterwards and the T. rex doesn't heavily implies it was the former.
    • It's also possible to play both the Tyrannosaurus and the Spinosaurus and have them fight one another.
  • Jurassic World Alive: The Spinosaurus as well as the T. rex are two of the dino species featured in the game, allowing them to have matches against each other.
  • Jurassic World: Evolution: As a clear nod to the third movie, two of the Species Profiles show fights between Tyrannosaurus rex and Spinosaurus:
    • In the first video about the T. rex, a Tyrannosaurus is attacking a Spinosaurus and bites its head, but it manages to break free from its grasp.
    • The second video has a T. rex circling around a Spino before suddenly biting its neck and putting it on the ground, apparently killing it.
    • Likewise, the first of the videos about the Spinosaurus features it opposing a Tyrannosaurus in the rain and roaring at it aggressively.
    • Within the game itself, the Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are two of the dinosaurs present, so it's a possibility for them to fight one another at any moment.
  • Jurassic World Evolution 2: One of the later updates changed the Spinosaurus' kill animation on Tyrannosaurus rex and other giant theropods like Giganotosaurus and Indominus rex to the kill animation from the third film, starting with the other dinosaur headbutting the Spino and ending with the neck snap and dropping the corpse to the ground.
• Jurassic: The Hunted: During the Boss Fight against Spike the Spinosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus rex appears at the moment Spike is losing too much health. When they see each other, the two dinosaurs immediately have a fight that's nearly identical to the one from JP III. The Tyrannosaurus attacks first by biting Spike's neck, but the Spino manages to free himself and repel his enemy. Then, Spike strikes back and bites his foe's neck before snapping it, effectively killing the T. rex just like in the movie. Apparently, Spike eats his rival's carcass afterward.
• Prehistoric Kingdom: This trope is Discussed during Nigel Marven's commentary on the Spinosaurus, in which he mentions that online dinosaur forums keep asking who would win between a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus. Nigel admits that he himself has never thought about it before, but now he's wondering.
• Primal Carnage averts this in-game, as all dinosaurs fight on the same team against the humans, but one of the game's promotional videos features a battle between the two dinosaurs. While a Tyrannosaurus is walking near a river, a Spinosaurus suddenly emerges from the water and bites its head. The T. rex manages to get free, but the Spino then bites its neck. However, the Tyrannosaurus fends off its adversary by headbutting it and makes a loud roar, to which the Spinosaurus answers by roaring back. After roaring several times, the two dinos subsequently charge each other and try to bite one another. Finally, the T. rex strikes its opponent before crushing its neck with its jaws and roaring victoriously. Considering the Spino gets killed in a very similar way to the Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park III (while the rex itself shrugs it off when its foe tries this move against it), this scene is a clear Take That! towards the film.
• In the first Zoo Tycoon game, the one where both are adoptable animals, if you were to put the two together, they would fight. Per the coding, the T. rex always wins.

Web Animation

• This musical parody of Jurassic Park III by LHUGUENY features the fight between the Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus. As in the movie, the T. rex scores the first hit by biting the Spinosaurus's neck (which doesn't stop him from singing), but then the Spinosaurus manages to free himself and grabs the Tyrannosaurus by using his hands and jaws in order to kill him with a Neck Snap just like in the movie. The Spinosaurus even notes that the audience was upset by the T. rex's death.
• Dinosaurs Battle World Championship: Season 1 ends with a climactic battle between the Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus at a volcanic landscape. After a long and brutal fight, the rex came out on top.
• Jurassic Park Horror surprisingly averts this. Despite both the Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus being in the episode "The River", the two actively pursuing the same human prey, they never fight nor even directly interact with one another.
  • Played Straight in "SORNA Episode 2: Old Rivals" by the same creator. As a Spinosaurus tries to devour the protagonist in his plane wreck, a Tyrannosaurus arrives and charges at it. The two theropods then have a brutal fight, with the T. rex giving the Spino a powerful blow with its tail. At the end of the episode, a second Tyrannosaurus shows up and joins the fight.

Web Videos

• The subject of who would be the winner in a fight between a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus is addressed on BBC video channel's Spinosaurus VS T-Rex: Who Would Win?. They conclude that the Spino would have dominated the fight in a swamp, but otherwise the T. rex would probably have won thanks to its stronger bite force.
• In Pokemon Amber, if you pick Saillil as a Starter Pokemon and evolve it into its secondary evolution, Spinozar, you can have it battle a Primal Tyrantrum. Vice versa with Primal Tyrantrum if you didn't pick Saillil.
• Goji Center also discusses a possible confrontation between the Spino and T. rex in this video, going into detail about their respective attributes and combat capabilities. Like BBC above, it was concluded that either could win a fight, depending on the terrain.

Web Original

• Parodied by the artist Kovács Attila in this comic, which shows the Spinosaurus reacting to the T. rex's boasts by elongating its jaws like a snake and swallowing its rival whole, riffing on both the memetic Science Marches On reputation of Spinosaurus, and a paper which indicated Irritator, a relative of it from South America could expand its jaw.

Western Animation

• Cars on the Road: Played with. In "Dino Park", Mater dreams that he and Lightning get chased by a Tyranamissiasaurus rex, which itself gets attacked by the much larger Spinocrankshaftorex. While the dinocars' names obviously reference Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus, both of them actually more closely resemble Ceratosaurus.
• Craig of the Creek: In the episode "Craig World", the titular park has an attraction called "Dino-World" where the mini-figures of a T. rex and a Spinosaurus are facing off with each other. Unusually for this trope, the mini-figures are up-to-date with modern understanding, with the T. rex being feathered in some parts and the Spinosaurus possessing short legs, a concave sail, and a paddle-shaped tail.
• Dino Ranch: In "This Ranch Ain't Big Enough", Biscuit (a T. rex) protects the kids from a Spinosaurus. When the Spinosaurus returns in need of medical help, the kids try to keep Biscuit from finding out so a new fight won't start. Biscuit finds the Spinosaurus but, understanding the situation, lets the Spinosaurus go without a new fight.
• Dinosaur Train: Subverted in "The Old Spinosaurus and the Sea". The young Tyrannosaurus Buddy and his adoptive Pteranodon family go fishing in the Big Misty Sea, but they are worried of the old Spinosaurus who live there as he is known to have a bad temper and may be dangerous to them. When they end up encountering him, he yells at them for causing the fish to go away, but doesn't attack them and eventually turns out to be much nicer than he looks. He even befriends Buddy and teaches him his fishing techniques.
• Dino Squad inverts this — surprisingly, given the show's usual willingness to regurgitate every dinosaur cliche imaginable. Max, who turns into a T. rex, is good friends with Fiona, who turns into a Spinosaurus, and they often fight together alongside the rest of the Dino Squad against other prehistoric creatures.
• Gigantosaurus: In the Season 3 episode "The Shadow Show", T-Rex the young Tyrannosaurus uses a false shadow of Spino the Spinosaurus in order to scare the inhabitants of Cretacia and steal their food. However, the real Spino eventually shows up and threatens to attack T-Rex. Fortunately, Giganto the Giganotosaurus arrives and uses his own shadow to scare Spino away.
• Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous:
  • The final season features three fights between the Spinosaurus from JPIII and the Tyrannosaurus called "Big Eatie":
    • Their first fight takes place in the third episode of the season and ends in a draw.
    • In the penultimate episode, the two have a second fight that ends with the Spinosaurus winning and nearly killing Big Eatie.
    • However, Big Eatie recovers in the final episode and teams up with her daughter "Little Eatie" to fight the Spinosaurus. Being outnumbered, the Spinosaurus chooses to run away.
  • In addition, Limbo the Baryonyx (a smaller member of the Spinosauridae family) also tries to attack the young Tyrannosaurus "Little Eatie" alongside Toro the Carnotaurus and the Spinosaurus in the penultimate episode. However, her mother Big Eatie comes to her rescue and bites Limbo before throwing them away.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past, the turtles manage to tame some dinosaurs, including a Tyrannosaurus, and use them to attack a Triceratons' base. Upon seeing them coming, the Triceraton General decides to counterattack by activating their most powerful weapon, a gigantic robot Spinosaurus. An inevitable confrontation between the T. rex and the Spino ensues, although this time the other dinosaurs participate in the battle as well. At first, the Spinosaurus has no problem taking on all the dinos, even grabbing the Tyrannosaurus by its tail and throwing it around like a ragdoll. However, after a while, the dinosaurs finally land some serious hits on the Spino, especially when the T. rex strongly headbutts it (twice!) and bites its arm. As a result, the robot-Spinosaurus starts malfunctioning and the turtles take the opportunity to kill it with a giant drill.
• Teen Titans (2003): In "The End (Part 3)", Beast Boy is confronted to a demonic clone of himself with the same power of shapeshifting into animals. After fighting by turning into various creatures, Beast Boy finally takes the form of a Tyrannosaurus rex, which had been portrayed throughout the series as his most powerful form. The clone one-ups this by becoming a Spinosaurus. While most of the ensuing fight takes place offscreen, from what we're shown it seems to be very similar to the one from Jurassic Park III, with the T. rex taking the first shot by biting the Spino's neck and putting him to the ground, only for him to eventually free himself and overpower his adversary. At the end of the fight, Beast Boy's T. rex form gets thrown into some rocks and has to turn into a spider to escape from the Spino's sight. It is notably one of the few times besides the movie where the Spinosaurus actually wins the fight.

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