Nigersaurus had a extraordinary dental battery consisting of somewhere around five hundred narrow, intently packed teeth, organized in rows alongside its large, flat jaw.

They consisted of vertically stacked columns of replaceable teeth. Every time the highest tooth wore out in almost any given column, the one appropriate below it will shift upwards and take the outdated tooth's place.

In conclusion, Nigersaurus was a singular and interesting dinosaur that lived over the Late Cretaceous interval in what is currently Niger. Its rows of tiny teeth and specialised jaw structure designed it nicely-fitted to browsing on small-lying vegetation, and its fossils serve as a precious supply of details about the range of lifestyle that existed on this planet millions of several years back.

But that’s not all for Nigersaurus. Chris took us all to some flat space of purple-colored sandstone wherever he had Found the upper jaw of a child Nigersaurus—1 that might match on top of a silver dollar!

What dinosaur has five hundred teeth? An unorthodox herbivore, this reptile grazed in what's now the Sahara Desert 110 million several years in the past. These sauropod dinosaurs collected food stuff using a massive, wide mouth; the snout was broader when compared to the back of your creature's head on the first fossil cranium.

The review of dinosaurs like Nigersaurus aids us to raised realize the background of our World plus the significant job that these historical creatures played in shaping the earth as we realize it now.

The confined knowledge of the genus was the results of very poor preservation of its remains, which arises through the fragile and extremely pneumatic building (full of air Areas linked to air sacs) from the skull and skeleton, consequently resulting in disarticulation of the fossils. A few of the cranium fossils were being so thin that a strong mild beam was seen as a result of them. Consequently, no intact skulls or articulated skeletons have already been located, and these specimens stand for essentially the most finish recognised rebbachisaurid remains.[three][1]

We have an interest to find additional than simply dinosaurs. We wish to discover all animals and plants that after lived along the ancient streams and forests one hundred ten million several years back. Probably the most widespread fossils we encountered in the main week of work belonged to an unlimited crocodile known as Sarcosuchus.

A 2015 cladistic analyze by Wilsona and also the French palaeontologist Ronan Allain identified Rebbachisaurus alone to team Along with the nigersaurines, as well as the authors suggested that Nigersaurinae was hence a junior synonym of Rebbachisaurinae (considering that that name might have priority).

And what a skeleton it absolutely was! The newfound fossils gave us our initial look at the dino's difficult dental batteries and vacuum cleaner mouth. Sereno named the species Nigersaurus taqueti — being an homage to French paleontologist Philippe Taquet — in 1999.

While it had substantial nostrils along with a fleshy snout, Sereno and colleagues observed that Nigersaurus experienced an underdeveloped olfactory location of its brain and thus did not have a sophisticated perception of smell. Its Mind-to-system-mass ratio was average to get a reptile, and smaller than Individuals of ornithischians and non-coelurosaurian theropods. The cerebrum comprised about thirty% on the brain volume, as in a number of other dinosaurs.[three] The American palaeoartist Mark Hallett and paleontologist Mathew J.

The snout was also proportionately shorter, along with the tooth row was in no way prognathous, the snout tip not protruding relative to the remainder from the tooth series.[1] Nigersaurus was distinct in that its frontal bone (which fashioned much of the cranium-roof) was elongate (Significantly narrower than extensive), and experienced a marked cerebral fossa (a despair over the surface of this bone inside the head).[4] Nigersaurus The maxillary tooth row was in its entirety transversely rotated, its normal rear 90° everted in direction of the front. This was matched by A similar rotation in the dentary in the reduced jaw. This transverse orientation in the upper and reduced tooth rows was special towards the dinosaur. Because of this configuration, no other tetrapod had all of its teeth Situated as far to the front as Nigersaurus.[3][4]

Wafer-slim fossils with slim bone plates are not the simplest points to preserve and examine. But dag nabit, a person's gotta do it!

What's a lot more, the same as grazing cows currently, these creatures were being ample all through their heyday. Once the Preliminary discovery, Sereno located A different Nigersaurus specimen through an expedition in 2000.