After the iguanodontian Lurdusaurus, Nigersaurus was by far the most numerous megaherbivore. Other herbivores in the similar development include things like Ouranosaurus, Elrhazosaurus, and an unnamed titanosaur. Together, these compose among the couple of associations of megaherbivores using a stability of sauropods and huge ornithopods.
Considering the fact that numerous rebbachisaurids inhabited latitudes that may happen to be tropical to subtropical in the center Cretaceous, this pneumaticity can have assisted the animals cope Along with the quite large temperatures. Based on Ibiricu and colleagues, this adaptation may be a motive why rebbachisaurids were the sole team of diplodocoids that survived to the Late Cretaceous.[21]
Initial discoveries of Nigersaurus fossils date again into the nineteen sixties, nevertheless it wasn't until finally the seventies that a lot more full stays have been uncovered. These remains were formally studied and described by paleontologist Paul Sereno and his workforce in 1999.
Nigersaurus is an important discovery for paleontologists because it helps you to get rid of light around the evolution and variety of sauropods through the mid-Cretaceous time period.
The Nigersaurus is an interesting and special dinosaur which has captured common consideration, partly as a consequence of its uncommon characteristics and intriguing nickname since the "dinosaur with five hundred teeth."
In 1997, when paleontologist Paul Sereno first began to unearth the stays of the dinosaur in Niger's Sahara Desert, he didn’t know what to Feel. He was excavating bones inside of a dry area known as Gadoufaoua, which experienced a loaded fossil bed to start with identified by French uranium miners.
This sauropod (lengthy-necked dinosaur) has an unconventional cranium made up of as numerous as 500 slender teeth. A serious target of the expedition is to locate the rest of this abnormal dinosaur so we are able to explain it and reconstruct it for everybody to determine.
Wedel and said in 2016 that even though sauropods usually could use their prolonged necks to detect predators from afar, This could not apply into the limited-necked Nigersaurus. They pointed out the eyes of Nigersaurus have been positioned additional to the highest from the skull than for most other sauropods, earlier mentioned the muzzle, which might give it overlapping fields of watch. Its visual field might have been at or near to 360 levels, and hypersensitivity of motion would have been important to a vulnerable prey-animal.[20]
Head's Up! (It's possible) Mainly because Nigersaurus ate with its head down, authorities have wondered about its posture. Sereno and his co-authors when argued that the herbivore aimed its facial area and neck downwards — regardless of whether it had been feeding or not — as being a make any difference of pattern.
Among the many myriad of dinosaurs that when roamed our World, the Nigersaurus stands out, not for its dimensions or ferocity, but for its outstanding dental construction.
Nigersaurus experienced trouble in Keeping their head upward or horizontally. So eating leaves along with other portions of long Trees was not possible for them.
Consuming like which can be rough on the dental wellbeing Until you've got a syteady supply of substitution teeth. Nigersaurus needs to have worn out its tooth crowns in a quick-fire rate.
The dinosaur's vertebrae was crammed with air pockets much like People of birds, so the dinosaur was probable fairly light, likewise. Its brain was with regard to the measurement of the walnut, that is kind of normal for sauropods, Sereno says.
What's a lot more, similar to grazing cows nowadays, these creatures were being plentiful for the duration of their heyday. After the Preliminary discovery, Sereno identified A different Nigersaurus what dinosaur has 500 teeth specimen throughout an expedition in 2000.