In 2020, the French palaeontologist Julien Benoit and colleagues examined lateral semicircular canal correlation to head posture on modern-day mammals, and found that even though there was substantial correlation involving the reconstructed and actual head postures, the aircraft of the semicircular canal wasn't held horizontally within the resting pose as inferred.
Many of the tooth columns in Nigersaurus' dental batteries ended up lined up, contrary to the teeth of other dinosaurs, with the really front of its mouth, positioned together the muzzle's gently curved outer edge.
Nonetheless a third sauropod, the South American Antarctosaurus, might or might not are actually a kissing cousin in addition.
Nigersaurus also bears signs of lower-angle tooth-to-tooth have on on The within with the maxillary crowns, which suggests that jaw movement was restricted to precise up-and-down motions. Worn teeth from your lessen jaw have not nevertheless been identified, but They're predicted to point out opposing tooth-to-tooth use. A chance to elevate their heads effectively higher than the ground isn't going to automatically imply they browsed on products there, plus the short neck of Nigersaurus would have limited the browsing vary when compared with other diplodocoids.[three]
It was learned in the prosperous fossil vertebrate fauna on the Elrhaz Development in a location known as Gadoufaoua, during the Republic of Niger. Fossils of this dinosaur were initially described in 1976, but it had been only named in 1999 immediately after much more comprehensive continues to be had been located and explained.
Fossil proof implies it lived in what is currently the Sahara Desert, feeding on ferns and various vegetation in its lush, riverine habitat.
The enamel on the teeth of Nigersaurus was hugely asymmetrical, 10 instances thicker on the outwards experiencing side than around the interior side.
Nigersaurus had a jaw structure contrary to some other dinosaur. Its broad, squared-off muzzle housed about 500 slender, pencil-like teeth. These teeth were not evenly distributed but were being organized in columns and rows, with as numerous as 9 substitution teeth guiding Each and every active tooth.
The Nigersaurus, with its extraordinary dental variety of 500 slender teeth and a wide, squared-off muzzle, serves to be a amazing window into the evolutionary paths that dinosaurs took to adapt to their environments. This specialised feeder, not like many of its sauropod kinfolk, evolved to snip and consume delicate, considerable vegetation close to the ground, revealing a singular area of interest during the Cretaceous ecosystem.
This weird, extended-necked dinosaur is characterised by its unusually broad, straight-edged muzzle tipped with in excess of five hundred replaceable teeth. The 500 teeth dinosaur original fossil skull of Nigersaurus
Nigersaurus and its closest kinfolk are grouped in the subfamily Rebbachisaurinae (formerly considered grouped inside the eponymous Nigersaurinae) of your family members Rebbachisauridae, which happens to be Component of the sauropod superfamily Diplodocoidea. Nigersaurus was probably a browser, and fed with its head close to the bottom. The area of its Mind that detected smell was underdeveloped, Whilst its brain measurement was akin to that of other dinosaurs.
Nigersaurus lived in what is currently the Sahara Desert in the mid-Cretaceous period of time, roughly a hundred and fifteen to 105 million several years ago, in a very lush, riverine habitat with abundant flora.
Points got far more interesting in 1997. That is any time a member of Sereno's field crew recognized some Nigersaurus cranium bones. More than the system of two expeditions, more than enough materials was located to reconstruct about eighty p.c from the beast's skeleton.
In 2017, the Argentinian palaeontologist Lucio M. Ibiricu and colleagues examined the postcranial skeletal pneumaticity inside the skeletons of rebbachisaurids, and recommended that it absolutely was an adaptation for lowering the density of your skeleton, and this might have diminished the muscle Power required to go your body, in addition to the warmth produced in the process.