A 2009 analyze with the British palaeontologist Mike P. Taylor and colleagues agreed that Nigersaurus was ready to feed Together with the downturned head and neck posture proposed because of the 2007 research, but contested this was the habitual posture of the animal. The research observed that the "neutral" head and neck posture of recent animals would not necessarily correspond for their habitual head posture.
They carved a block of rock that incorporated both equally skulls, recognizing full well that it could weigh all-around 600 lbs when encased in plaster.
Its feeding style is in comparison to that of contemporary grazing animals or perhaps a vacuum cleaner, as it possible swept its head aspect-to-side whilst consuming vegetation.
Dinosaurs have a new spouse and children tree. Learn how it's modified and what the new tree reveals about dinosaurs' origins and evolution.
We use cookies to give you the best on line encounter. We utilize them to enhance our Web site and material, and also to tailor our digital advertising and marketing on 3rd-party platforms. You are able to adjust your Tastes at any time.
Nigersaurus did not show precisely the same modifications found within the jaws of other dinosaurs with dental batteries, or mammals with elaborate chewing capabilities. The reduced jaw was L-formed and divided into your subcylindrical transverse ramus, which contained the teeth, and also the back ramus, which was additional lightweight and was the location for many of the muscle mass attachments. It absolutely was unique in that the tooth row expanded to the sides with the airplane of the key ramus with the lower jaw.
Sauropod dinosaurs, like Nigersaurus, walked on 4 legs, having a extensive “whiplash tail” and an extended neck. But when compared to other sauropods, it was reasonably smaller — sitting somewhere amongst an African and Indian elephant in sizing.
Those jaws held something hardly ever just before observed inside a sauropod dinosaur: It absolutely was one of the very first dinosaur skulls with tooth, or "dental," batteries.
When the main fossils of Nigersaurus were identified in 1976, paleontologists couldn’t acknowledge them as a whole new species. It is because the skeleton fossils were being pretty hollow and distorted.
Nigersaurus is actually a genus of sauropod dinosaurs that lived roughly one hundred fifteen to 105 million decades in the past in the course of the Early to Mid-Cretaceous time period. It belonged to your rebbachisaurids, a subgroup of Diplodocoidea, a clade of extended-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs.
After the iguanodontian Lurdusaurus, Nigersaurus was essentially the most many megaherbivore. Other herbivores in the same development contain Ouranosaurus, Elrhazosaurus, and an unnamed titanosaur. With each other, these compose one of several couple associations of megaherbivores using a equilibrium of sauropods and huge ornithopods.
On the basis of microtomography scans of cranium aspects in the holotype specimen, Sereno and colleagues created a "prototype" Nigersaurus cranium they Nigersaurus might study. In addition they designed an endocast with the brain and scanned the semicircular canals of its inner ear, which they discovered being oriented horizontally. Inside their 2007 analyze, they said that the structure with the occiput behind the skull and cervical vertebrae would've constrained the upward and downward movement of the neck and the rotation with the skull.
Having an astonishing five hundred teeth, this dinosaur offers a singular glimpse into the evolutionary adaptations of prehistoric creatures. Permit’s explore the earth on the Nigersaurus and its fascinating dental anatomy.
eight ft) in length and weighing about 2 tons. Regardless of its compact measurement compared to other sauropods, it received interest resulting from its special anatomy, including a large muzzle resembling a vacuum cleaner and dental batteries consisting of hundreds of modest, needle-shaped teeth arranged in columns.