As it absolutely was a prey animal, it was important for Nigersaurus to have motion hypersensitivity to detect any opportunity threats.
The nickname "dinosaur with five hundred teeth" arises from Nigersaurus's exclusive dental battery. Its jaw held close to five hundred slender teeth, arranged in tightly packed rows, and these teeth were being frequently changed during its daily life.
This Nigersaurus was a hatchling, probably less than 1 calendar year from hatching when it died and was fossilized.”
Nigersaurus, a rebbachisaurid sauropod from the center Cretaceous time period, was found from the Elrhaz Development in Niger. Its title, which means “Niger’s lizard,” was given adhering to the discovery of additional entire remains in 1999, although its fossils ended up very first explained in 1976.
Nigersaurus is believed to behave very like other herbivore sauropods. That they had possibly expended most in their time in cling-Doggy positions and grazing lower-lying vegetation.
This sauropod (long-necked dinosaur) has an unconventional cranium that contains as numerous as five hundred slender teeth. A major objective of the expedition is to search out the rest of this uncommon dinosaur so we can easily explain it and reconstruct it for everybody to find out.
Nigersaurus is considered to are a herbivore and might have fed on tender vegetation applying its extended neck and a little head.
We are interested to find additional than just dinosaurs. We want to obtain all animals and crops that when lived together The traditional streams and forests 110 million decades back. Just about the most typical fossils we encountered in the initial 7 days of work belonged to an enormous crocodile referred to as Sarcosuchus.
Nigersaurus is Just about the most archaeologically significant dinosaurs since it helps scientists to higher recognize the anatomy and physiology of other sauropods. It is also Just about the Nigersaurus most completely known rebbachisaurids, with in excess of two hundred bones of at the very least seventeen different dinosaurs identified.
It experienced all over 500 slender teeth in its jaw that were replaced with new teeth in 2 months. Its higher jaw teeth ended up larger than its reduce jaw teeth. Furthermore, Its jaw was much wider than the cranium.
[thirteen] Due to lateral orientation from the teeth, it most likely wouldn't are actually ready to chew.[one] Nigersaurus wore its tooth crowns down a lot quicker than other dinosaurian herbivores,[three] and its tooth substitution amount was the very best of any acknowledged dinosaur. Every single tooth was replaced when each and every 14 days; the speed experienced Formerly been estimated lower. In distinction to Nigersaurus, sauropods with lessen tooth substitution premiums and broader tooth crowns are imagined to have already been canopy browsers.[twelve]
The snout was also proportionately shorter, plus the tooth row was under no circumstances prognathous, the snout idea not protruding relative to the rest of the tooth sequence.[one] Nigersaurus was distinctive in that its frontal bone (which fashioned Significantly of your cranium-roof) was elongate (A great deal narrower than long), and experienced a marked cerebral fossa (a depression within the surface area of the bone In the head).[4] The maxillary tooth row was in its entirety transversely rotated, its normal rear 90° everted in direction of the front. This was matched by The same rotation with the dentary from the reduced jaw. This transverse orientation in the higher and lower tooth rows was one of a kind to the dinosaur. Because of this configuration, no other tetrapod had all of its teeth Found as far towards the front as Nigersaurus.[three][4]
But that’s not all; inside of its oddly formed muzzle, the dinosaur was equipped without any fewer than 500 teeth (both “active” and substitution). The higher jaws contained 60 rows of small, needle-formed teeth, when the decreased jaws had no less than sixty eight really sharp teeth.
Skeletal diagram of Nigersaurus taqueti, illustrating acknowledged fossil elements and dimensions comparison by using a human, depicting this Cretaceous sauropod's special physical composition