Nigersaurus was named after the West African state where its fossils have already been located: The Republic of Niger. Back again when this animal roamed, forests and braided rivers protected the landscape. (Nigersaurus would've needed to watch out for Sarcosuchus, a huge relative of contemporary crocodiles.)
It lived within a riparian habitat, and its food plan likely consisted of sentimental vegetation, including ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It is one of the most frequent fossil vertebrates uncovered in the area, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, and also huge theropods and crocodylomorphs.
First discoveries of Nigersaurus fossils day back again to your sixties, but it surely was not until finally the nineteen seventies that far more comprehensive continues to be were being uncovered. These continues to be had been formally examined and explained by paleontologist Paul Sereno and his workforce in 1999.
But that’s not all for Nigersaurus. Chris took us all to a flat area of purple-colored sandstone where by he had located the higher jaw of a child Nigersaurus—a single that will fit on top of a silver greenback!
Nigersaurus is considered to behave much like other herbivore sauropods. That they had in all probability used most in their time in hold-Canine positions and grazing small-lying vegetation.
These teeth and the shape in the sauropod's skull very likely advanced to help it munch on plants minimal to the ground. Grass wasn’t all-around yet for the duration of its time, but Nigersaurus probably used Significantly of its time grazing on a little something like it, putting on down its teeth in no time.
Nigersaurus is thought to are a herbivore and may have fed on tender crops making use of its lengthy neck and a little head.
On the basis of microtomography scans of cranium aspects on the holotype specimen, Sereno and colleagues created a "prototype" Nigersaurus skull they could look at. They also made an endocast with the brain and scanned the semicircular canals of its inner ear, which they located to become oriented horizontally. Within their 2007 analyze, they stated which the structure of your occiput at the back of the cranium and cervical vertebrae would've limited the upward and downward movement from the neck as well as rotation from the skull.
These popular dinosaur reconstructions in the 1960s are not scientifically correct. Can you spot the glitches?
Its head is what genuinely stands out about Nigersaurus, even though. The jaws, which have a flat entrance, are lined with about five hundred teeth, which Sereno says ended up replaceable. These teeth ended up all precisely the same in measurement, and he estimates that they likely only lasted about per month or so ahead of they were being worn down.
It additional argued the orientation on the semicircular canals may differ noticeably inside modern day species, and it is for that reason not responsible for determining head posture.[23] This was supported from the Spanish palaeontologist Jesús Marugán-Lobón and colleagues within a 2013 examine that instructed the solutions utilized by Sereno's staff were being imprecise, and that Nigersaurus habitually held its head like other sauropods.[24]
Taking in like which can be rough on your dental health Except you do have a syteady source of alternative teeth. Nigersaurus need to have worn out its tooth crowns at a quick-fire pace.
Diplodocus skull for comparison Its cranium was very distinct from Diplodocus, suggesting a distinct feeding system. It had numerous fenestrae (openings) and skinny bones. It had a broad muzzle filled with over five hundred teeth.
What's a lot more, just like grazing cows right now, these creatures have been considerable all through their heyday. After the initial discovery, Sereno discovered One more Nigersaurus specimen through an expedition in 500 teeth dinosaur 2000.