That extensive muzzle with its Nigersaurus teeth was great for scooping up ferns, horsetails and also other small-lying crops. And Using the bountiful teeth, the dinosaur would've had no issues shearing through this vegetation.

Nigersaurus (/niːˈʒɛərsɔːrəs, ˈnaɪdʒərsɔːrəs/) is a genus of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur that lived through the middle Cretaceous interval, about one hundred fifteen to 105 million a long time ago. It had been found during the Elrhaz Formation in a location known as Gadoufaoua, in Niger.

There have been many light-weight, aerated bones — ordinarily associated with theropods, like Tyrannosaurus rex, as well as the birds that developed from them — Therefore the researchers assumed that was what they had been handling.

“This is actually the 1st sauropod which has a tooth battery,” Sereno suggests, including that its jaw might have been angled downwards as an alternative to forwards — And that's why Sereno had these types of difficulties fitting the bones collectively at first.

In Nigersaurus' case, the upper jaws contained sixty columns of smaller, needle-shaped upper teeth. And no much less than 68 quite sharp teeth had been existing on the decreased jaws. Tallied jointly, upper jaw and lessen jaw, the beast had much more than five hundred particular person teeth.

Nigersaurus is placed while in the classification of sauropods during which all the extended-necked and long-tailed dinosaurs are positioned. Nigersaurus was likely among the list of smallest sauropods since its neck was brief. An Grownup Nigersaurus weighed all-around 4 tons and its dimensions was comparable to a modern Elephant.

 in 1999, right after even more and much more total stays ended up found and described. The genus title suggests "Niger reptile", and the particular title honours the French palaeontologist Philippe Taquet, who learned the primary stays.

This speedy tooth alternative, with new teeth escalating just about every fourteen times, ensured it maintained sharp edges for grazing on soft vegetation. The exclusive dental arrangement produced it extremely successful 500 teeth dinosaur at processing minimal-lying vegetation, contributing to its name for a specialized herbivore.

A 2015 cladistic study by Wilsona along with the French palaeontologist Ronan Allain discovered Rebbachisaurus itself to group With all the nigersaurines, and also the authors advised that Nigersaurinae was therefore a junior synonym of Rebbachisaurinae (due to the fact that name would've priority).

When the initial fossils of Nigersaurus ended up uncovered in 1976, paleontologists couldn’t understand them as a whole new species. It truly is because the skeleton fossils were being very hollow and distorted.

Its feeding style has been as compared to that of contemporary grazing animals or perhaps a vacuum cleaner, since it most likely swept its head facet-to-facet though consuming vegetation.

The restricted knowledge of the genus was the results of weak preservation of its stays, which arises from your fragile and remarkably pneumatic construction (full of air spaces linked to air sacs) with the cranium and skeleton, in turn creating disarticulation on the fossils. Several of the cranium fossils had been so skinny that a robust gentle beam was obvious as a result of them. Consequently, no intact skulls or articulated skeletons have already been located, and these specimens depict probably the most full recognised rebbachisaurid remains.[3][1]

All instructed, these have been a few of the most prosperous herbivores in the world, Sereno suggests. Nigersaurus lived about 110 million decades back, through the Mesozoic Era, as well as species was around for around 150 million many years.

The Nigersaurus, with its staggering five hundred teeth, offers an interesting distinction to its dinosaur kinfolk, Specifically other sauropods. Compared with its cousins with less, thicker teeth, the Nigersaurus’s slender, pencil-like teeth had been uniquely tailored for snipping delicate vegetation, a stark variance through the robust teeth of sauropods like Brachiosaurus, which ended up probably designed to take care of more durable vegetation.