A 2009 examine by the British palaeontologist Mike P. Taylor and colleagues agreed that Nigersaurus was in a position to feed While using the downturned head and neck posture proposed through the 2007 analyze, but contested that this was the habitual posture on the animal. The analyze pointed out the "neutral" head and neck posture of recent animals would not always correspond for their habitual head posture.
The authors therefore cautioned from utilizing semicircular canals as proxy to infer the specific orientation of skulls. They identified that diet regime correlated strongly with semicircular canal orientation, but not with head posture, when head posture and semicircular canal orientation had been strongly correlated with phylogeny.[twenty five]
The Air Obvious Nigersaurus stayed under the radar for quite some time. The primary acknowledged fossils belonging to this animal ended up recovered in the nineteen fifties by French paleontologists inside the Nigerian Sahara. Regrettably, most of these bones were being isolated or fragmentary.
But that’s not all; within its oddly formed muzzle, the dinosaur was equipped without having less than 500 teeth (both equally “active” and substitution). The upper jaws contained sixty rows of little, needle-formed teeth, though the reduced jaws experienced no less than 68 incredibly sharp teeth.
Nigersaurus and its closest family are grouped throughout the subfamily Rebbachisaurinae (formerly regarded as grouped within the eponymous Nigersaurinae) with the family Rebbachisauridae, that's A part of the sauropod superfamily Diplodocoidea. Nigersaurus was possibly a browser, and fed with its head close to the ground. The area of its brain that detected odor was underdeveloped, Even though its brain size Nigersaurus was similar to that of other dinosaurs.
Nigersaurus didn't exhibit precisely the same modifications viewed within the jaws of other dinosaurs with dental batteries, or mammals with elaborate chewing features. The lessen jaw was L-shaped and divided to the subcylindrical transverse ramus, which contained the teeth, as well as again ramus, which was more light-weight and was The situation for the majority of the muscle attachments. It was distinct in that the tooth row expanded to the sides from the plane of the key ramus on the lower jaw.
It had been found out inside the loaded fossil vertebrate fauna on the Elrhaz Formation in a location identified as Gadoufaoua, within the Republic of Niger. Fossils of the dinosaur were initially described in 1976, but it had been only named in 1999 after far more comprehensive remains were being identified and explained.
All those jaws held a little something by no means prior to seen in the sauropod dinosaur: It absolutely was one of several initially dinosaur skulls with tooth, or "dental," batteries.
Nevertheless, this assert is contested by other scientists who consider Nigersaurus was probably much more common of other sauropods.
The reconstructed skeleton of an incredibly Bizarre dinosaur, the plant-having Nigersaurus. This is the sculptural rendition of what the scientists anticipate the dinosaur's unique head might have looked like.
Nigersaurus was a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived through the Late Cretaceous period, somewhere around 119-ninety nine million yrs back. Its fossils have been initial identified during the Republic of Niger, from which it derives its title.
It lived in a riparian habitat, and its diet program in all probability consisted of soft plants, including ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It can be Probably the most frequent fossil vertebrates observed in the region, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, and big theropods and crocodylomorphs.
Having an astonishing 500 teeth, this dinosaur presents a singular glimpse in to the evolutionary adaptations of prehistoric creatures. Enable’s investigate the world of the Nigersaurus and its intriguing dental anatomy.
The quick tooth alternative suggests that it primarily fed on smooth, abrasive plants, which might have on down its teeth speedily.