Nigersaurus was named after the West African country where its fossils happen to be located: The Republic of Niger. Back when this animal roamed, forests and braided rivers lined the landscape. (Nigersaurus would've had to watch out for Sarcosuchus, a big relative of recent crocodiles.)

Although strolling across an exceedingly flat area, Gabe produced a outstanding discover—the bones of a completely new meat-having dinosaur lay partly exposed at her feet. She brushed absent the sand in the upper jaw.

The continues to be of Nigersaurus ended up originally explained by Taquet in 1976 as belonging to a dicraeosaurid, but in 1999 Sereno and colleagues reclassified it as being a rebbachisaurid diplodocoid.[four] These scientists speculated that since small necks and small measurement was regarded among basal diplodocoids, it could indicate these ended up ancestral characteristics from the group.

Nigersaurus lived one hundred ten million many years back in what is now Niger, West Africa. Even though the fossils have been found in the Sahara Desert, when Nigersaurus lived the world was a floodplain with wide rivers, conifer forests and lush vegetation.

We are closing in on that target quick for the reason that we came on a skeleton a couple of days later! This skeleton is lying on its side While using the tail curved upward. The curve on the spine measures about fifteen toes.

In 1997, when paleontologist Paul Sereno 1st started to unearth the remains of a dinosaur in Niger's Sahara Desert, he didn’t know what to Assume. He was excavating bones inside a dry location named Gadoufaoua, which experienced a wealthy fossil mattress initial uncovered by French uranium miners.

Nevertheless, this declare has actually been contested by other scientists who consider Nigersaurus was probably more typical of other sauropods.

[13] Due to the lateral orientation in the teeth, it likely would not have already been capable to chew.[one] Nigersaurus wore its tooth crowns down a lot quicker than other dinosaurian herbivores,[three] and its tooth substitute charge was the very best of any identified dinosaur. Every single tooth was replaced once every fourteen times; the rate experienced Earlier been approximated lower. In distinction to Nigersaurus, sauropods with lessen tooth substitute charges and broader tooth crowns are imagined to are actually Cover browsers.[twelve]

The reconstructed skeleton of an exceedingly Strange dinosaur, the plant-ingesting Nigersaurus. It is a sculptural rendition of what the experts expect the dinosaur's unique head might have seemed like.

The jaws could possibly have borne a keratinous sheath. Unlike other tetrapods, the tooth-bearing bones of its jaws had been rotated transversely relative to the remainder of the cranium, so that each one of its teeth had been located far to the entrance. Its skeleton was hugely pneumatised (crammed with air Areas connected to air sacs), though the limbs were what dinosaur has 500 teeth being robustly constructed.

But that’s not all for Nigersaurus. Chris took us all into a flat spot of purple-colored sandstone exactly where he had located the higher jaw of the little one Nigersaurus—just one that could healthy on top of a silver dollar!

Wedel and stated in 2016 that while sauropods generally speaking could use their prolonged necks to detect predators from afar, This could not utilize on the shorter-necked Nigersaurus. They pointed out that the eyes of Nigersaurus ended up placed even further in direction of the top of the cranium than in many other sauropods, above the muzzle, which might give it overlapping fields of see. Its Visible area would've been at or near to 360 degrees, and hypersensitivity of movement would've been vital that you a vulnerable prey-animal.[twenty]

The dinosaur's vertebrae was crammed with air pockets just like These of birds, And so the dinosaur was possible very light, likewise. Its brain was about the dimensions of the walnut, and that is more or less normal for sauropods, Sereno claims.

Nigersaurus was likely a browser, and fed with its head near the ground. The location of its brain that detected odor was little, Even though its brain dimensions was corresponding to that of other dinosaurs. There has been discussion on no matter if its head was habitually held downwards, or horizontally like other sauropods.