A 2009 study from the British palaeontologist Mike P. Taylor and colleagues agreed that Nigersaurus was capable of feed with the downturned head and neck posture proposed by the 2007 analyze, but contested that this was the habitual posture with the animal. The examine mentioned the "neutral" head and neck posture of modern animals doesn't essentially correspond to their habitual head posture.
Nigersaurus is actually a 30-foot-very long plant-taking in dinosaur that lived 110 million decades ago in what has become Niger’s Sahara Desert. Nigersaurus lived inside of a lush ecosystem along with the predatory dinosaur Suchomimus, the plant eaters ouranosaurus and lurdusaurus, and supercroc. Nigersaurus had a fragile cranium and a particularly large mouth lined with teeth Specially adapted for browsing crops near to the bottom.
There have been a great deal of light, aerated bones — usually related to theropods, like Tyrannosaurus rex, and also the birds that progressed from them — Therefore the researchers assumed that was what they had been coping with.
The remains of Nigersaurus have been to begin with explained by Taquet in 1976 as belonging to a dicraeosaurid, but in 1999 Sereno and colleagues reclassified it as a rebbachisaurid diplodocoid.[4] These researchers speculated that due to the fact shorter necks and compact sizing was regarded between basal diplodocoids, it may well indicate these were ancestral features from the group.
What dinosaur has 500 teeth? An unorthodox herbivore, this reptile grazed in what's now the Sahara Desert 110 million a long time in the past. These sauropod dinosaurs collected foodstuff having a large, broad mouth; the snout was wider in comparison to the again with the creature's head on the initial fossil cranium.
lived in what has become Niger about a hundred and fifteen to one zero five million decades ago, in the Aptian and Albian ages in the mid-Cretaceous. It very likely lived in habitats dominated by inland floodplains (a riparian zone).
The snout was also proportionately shorter, plus the tooth row was not at all prognathous, the snout idea not protruding relative to the remainder from the tooth collection.[1] Nigersaurus was unique in that its frontal bone (which formed much on the skull-roof) was elongate (A great deal narrower than extensive), and experienced a marked cerebral fossa (a depression on the area of this bone Within the head).[4] The maxillary tooth row was in its entirety transversely rotated, its ordinary rear Nigersaurus 90° everted in the direction of the entrance. This was matched by an identical rotation of your dentary on the reduced jaw. This transverse orientation of your upper and lessen tooth rows was unique for the dinosaur. Due to this configuration, no other tetrapod experienced all of its teeth Positioned as much on the entrance as Nigersaurus.[3][four]
One of the most distinct characteristics of Nigersaurus was its rows of little, peg-like teeth, which were arranged inside a straight line alongside the front of its jaws. These teeth have been continuously changed all over the dinosaur’s lifetime, letting it to feed continuously on tough vegetation.
Head's Up! (Perhaps) Simply because Nigersaurus ate with its head down, industry experts have puzzled about its posture. Sereno and his co-authors the moment argued the herbivore aimed its encounter and neck downwards — regardless of whether it was feeding or not — to be a subject of routine.
And what a skeleton it was! The newfound fossils gave us our very first consider the dino's complicated dental batteries and vacuum cleaner mouth. Sereno named the species Nigersaurus taqueti — as an homage to French paleontologist Philippe Taquet — in 1999.
But that’s not all for Nigersaurus. Chris took us all to a flat spot of purple-colored sandstone exactly where he experienced located the higher jaw of a baby Nigersaurus—one particular that would in shape on top of a silver greenback!
Paleontologists believe that their behavior may be as opposed with these days’s cows. Nigersaurus have been social and remained herds for a security technique. On account of inadequate fossil proof, the copy method of Nigersaurus just isn't known.
Nigersaurus is known to get lived in what is now present day-day Niger, Africa, that's why its title. It had been 1st found out during the early 2000s by a workforce of paleontologists led by Paul Sereno.
Nigersaurus was named and described in more depth by Sereno and colleagues only in 1999, determined by stays of recently identified folks. The exact same posting also named Jobaria, A different sauropod from Niger. The genus title Nigersaurus ("Niger reptile") is really a reference for the nation exactly where it was found, and the particular identify taqueti honours Taquet, who was the primary to organise large-scale palaeontological expeditions to Niger.