As it absolutely was a prey animal, it had been essential for Nigersaurus to get movement hypersensitivity to detect any likely threats.
Considering the fact that numerous rebbachisaurids inhabited latitudes that may have been tropical to subtropical in the Middle Cretaceous, this pneumaticity could possibly have assisted the animals cope Along with the extremely substantial temperatures. According to Ibiricu and colleagues, this adaptation may be a cause why rebbachisaurids were being the only group of diplodocoids that survived into your Late Cretaceous.[21]
Nigersaurus is assumed to own lived in huge herds and might have migrated around very long distances on the lookout for food items.
Nigersaurus lived a hundred and ten million several years ago in what has become Niger, West Africa. Although the fossils were found in the Sahara Desert, when Nigersaurus lived the world was a floodplain with vast rivers, conifer forests and lush vegetation.
Inspite of its shorter head and smaller neck, it experienced an extended tail and teeth that were adapted for grazing on plants. Nigersaurus is thought to are actually a quadrupedal herbivore and may have fed on tender crops making use of its extended neck and a small head.
In 1997, when paleontologist Paul Sereno initially started to unearth the remains of a dinosaur in Niger's Sahara Desert, he didn’t know what to Imagine. He was excavating bones in the dry location known as Gadoufaoua, which experienced a loaded fossil bed initially discovered by French uranium miners.
Judging with the LSC orientation in Nigersaurus, Sereno and enterprise hypothesized the animal generally walked all over with its snout pointed to the ground at a sixty seven-degree angle. Photo a moping teenager and you will get The thought.
Nigersaurus (/niːˈʒɛərsɔːrəs, ˈnaɪdʒərsɔːrəs/) is really a genus of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur that lived throughout the center Cretaceous period, about one hundred fifteen to 105 million several years back. It was identified in the Elrhaz Formation in a region known as Gadoufaoua, in Niger.
The teeth’s exceptional form and arrangement ended up beautifully fitted to its feeding habits. The slender, chisel-like teeth could competently snip off smooth vegetation, and their fast substitution ensured the what dinosaur has 500 teeth dinosaur could continually feed with no looking forward to new teeth to develop.
Nigersaurus is finest noted for its exclusive skull and jaw, which contained close to 500 slender teeth arranged in tightly packed rows. These teeth were specialised for grazing on low-lying vegetation, making Nigersaurus a highly economical herbivore.
A 2023 study via the French palaeontologist Rémi Lefebvre and colleagues examined the microanatomical construction on the limb bones of Nigersaurus as a result of CT-scans, the very first these kinds of review of the sauropod. Virtual sections with the limb bones sampled from people of various measurements ended up explored to ascertain the range of variation. Large-body weight bearing animals often have characteristics affiliated with this situation, impacting the internal construction on the limb bones, though the variation in between these kinds of bones is inadequately recognised.
It experienced a brief neck for a sauropod, with 13 cervical vertebrae. Nearly all rebbachisaurids experienced comparatively shorter necks and also a size of ten m (33 ft) or considerably less. The only member with the loved ones that arrived at the dimensions of more substantial sauropods was
The 1st fossils of Nigersaurus were being found while in the Elrhaz Development of Niger during the year 1997. However, more review disclosed that Nigersaurus was actually a member of a special group of sauropods generally known as the rebbachisaurids.
People jaws held a thing under no circumstances just before viewed in a very sauropod dinosaur: It had been among the list of first dinosaur skulls with tooth, or "dental," batteries.