Nigersaurus was named following the West African region the place its fossils are already identified: The Republic of Niger. Back again when this animal roamed, forests and braided rivers coated the landscape. (Nigersaurus would've needed to Be careful for Sarcosuchus, a massive relative of contemporary crocodiles.)
Nigersaurus is a thirty-foot-extended plant-taking in dinosaur that lived 110 million decades in the past in what is now Niger’s Sahara Desert. Nigersaurus lived in the lush setting alongside the predatory dinosaur Suchomimus, the plant eaters ouranosaurus and lurdusaurus, and supercroc. Nigersaurus had a fragile skull and an especially huge mouth lined with teeth especially adapted for browsing crops near to the bottom.
Initial discoveries of Nigersaurus fossils date again towards the 1960s, but it surely wasn't right up until the 1970s that a lot more complete continues to be were uncovered. These continues to be had been formally examined and described by paleontologist Paul Sereno and his team in 1999.
Nigersaurus also bears indications of very low-angle tooth-to-tooth use on The within in the maxillary crowns, which implies that jaw motion was limited to precise up-and-down motions. Worn teeth from your reduced jaw haven't yet been uncovered, but They're envisioned to indicate opposing tooth-to-tooth dress in. A chance to raise their heads perfectly over the ground would not necessarily imply they browsed on things there, plus the limited neck of Nigersaurus would have limited the searching range in comparison with other diplodocoids.[three]
There was discussion on no matter whether its head was habitually held downwards, or horizontally like other sauropods. It lived in a very riparian habitat, and its diet plan possibly consisted of soft crops, including ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It really is One of the more widespread fossil vertebrates identified in the area, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, together with massive theropods and crocodylomorphs.
After conducting a biomechanical Examination, one particular workforce of researchers concluded that the head and muzzle had been habitually oriented sixty seven° downwards and close to the ground as a result of adaptation for ground-amount searching.
As we’ve observed, Nigersaurus had a wide muzzle and numerous teeth perfectly fitted to consuming small-lying crops. This diet regime and Life-style might have needed the creature to have a continuous provide of substitute teeth, because it might have worn out its tooth crowns rapidly. A analyze revealed while in the journal PLOS One particular
This quick tooth replacement, with new teeth growing each and every fourteen days, ensured it taken care of sharp edges for grazing on smooth vegetation. The one of a kind dental arrangement built it remarkably productive at processing reduced-lying crops, contributing to its status for a specialized herbivore.
The reconstructed skeleton of a really Strange dinosaur, the plant-having Nigersaurus. This can be a sculptural rendition of what the researchers expect the dinosaur's unique head could possibly have appeared like.
Even though other heavy animals examined (which include rhinoceroses) had thick and variable bone cortices, the cortex of Nigersaurus was instead slim. These researchers suggested which the microanatomy of sauropods wasn't afflicted by drastic selective strain caused by bearing pounds, but that functions including the columnar limbs (as noticed in elephants), pneumaticity, and fleshy foot pads and cartilage relaxed tension on the bones. Additionally they proposed that sauropods may as a result are lighter in body weight than expected for their sizing, supporting the lowest overall body mass estimates for these dinosaurs.[22]
But that’s not all for Nigersaurus. Chris took us all to some flat spot of purple-coloured sandstone where he experienced Positioned the higher jaw of the baby Nigersaurus—one that could healthy on top of a silver dollar!
The speedy tooth substitute suggests that it generally fed on comfortable, abrasive crops, which might put on down its teeth speedily.
Dental batteries are a singular adaptation found in some plant-having dinosaurs that permitted them to efficiently course of action hard vegetation. These batteries consist of vertically stacked columns of teeth, Along with the best tooth in each column remaining 500 teeth dinosaur replaced as it wears out.
This reptile was significantly greater than any dwelling crocodile. Judging through the 6-foot cranium we found in the primary week, we suspect it could possibly have measured more than forty feet very long! The armor plates on its back calculated a foot across. We even laid out the staff to obtain a perception of just how huge this animal was.