After the iguanodontian Lurdusaurus, Nigersaurus was one of the most a lot of megaherbivore. Other herbivores with the similar formation include things like Ouranosaurus, Elrhazosaurus, and an unnamed titanosaur. With each other, these compose one of many number of associations of megaherbivores having a harmony of sauropods and huge ornithopods.
are grouped in the subfamily Nigersaurinae with the household Rebbachisauridae, and that is Section of the sauropod superfamily Diplodocoidea. Nigersaurus
Only by bringing jointly plants from throughout the world and a number of modern environments can a dinosaur-age scene be recreated. Many of the crops, like ginkgos, search just about similar to their extinct ancestors; some, such as the conifer Araucaria, ended up the dominant trees of the forests one hundred ten million several years ago.
“This is actually the initially sauropod which has a tooth battery,” Sereno states, including that its jaw would've been angled downwards rather than forwards — which is why Sereno had this sort of problems fitting the bones with each other at first.
On The idea of microtomography scans of skull components on the holotype specimen, Sereno and colleagues established a "prototype" Nigersaurus skull they may take a look at. In addition they created an endocast on the brain and scanned the semicircular canals of its inner ear, which they discovered to get oriented horizontally. Within their 2007 review, they stated which the structure of the occiput in the back of the cranium and cervical vertebrae would've minimal the upward and downward motion on the neck along with the rotation of your cranium.
Immediately after conducting a biomechanical Examination, 1 workforce of researchers concluded that The pinnacle and muzzle were being habitually oriented 67° downwards and shut to the bottom because of adaptation for ground-level searching.
As we keep on to check this fascinating creature, we've been reminded of the intricate Nigersaurus and assorted paths that evolution may take.
Nigersaurus are popular dinosaurs for obtaining 500 slender teeth within their jaw. These dinosaurs have already been acknowledged just lately while in the 12 months 2000 and had been named in the glory of region “Niger”. The phrase Nigersaurus has two elements; Niger (nation name), and Saurus (reptile).
The reconstructed skeleton of a very Strange dinosaur, the plant-having Nigersaurus. This can be a sculptural rendition of what the researchers anticipate the dinosaur's distinctive head may have seemed like.
This weird, long-necked dinosaur is characterised by its unusually broad, straight-edged muzzle tipped with greater than five hundred replaceable teeth. The original fossil cranium of Nigersaurus
This authorized the dinosaur to get a relentless supply of contemporary teeth, allowing for it to carry on to successfully method plant materials whilst its teeth wear down.
It experienced a short neck to get a sauropod, with 13 cervical vertebrae. Nearly all rebbachisaurids experienced reasonably short necks and also a length of ten m (33 ft) or considerably less. The only member with the household that reached the dimensions of larger sauropods was
Fossils of the dinosaur have been initial explained in 1976, but it had been only named Nigersaurus taqueti in 1999, after even further and even more comprehensive remains were being located and explained. The genus title usually means "Niger reptile", and the particular identify honours the palaeontologist Philippe Taquet, who identified the first stays.
The authors hence cautioned towards applying semicircular canals as proxy to infer the precise orientation of skulls. They identified that diet correlated strongly with semicircular canal orientation, although not with head posture, while head posture and semicircular canal orientation had been strongly correlated with phylogeny.[twenty five]