That wide muzzle with its Nigersaurus teeth was perfect for scooping up ferns, horsetails together with other minimal-lying crops. And Using the bountiful teeth, the dinosaur would've experienced no hassle shearing by way of this vegetation.
Nigersaurus most likely employed its dental batteries to successfully course of action minimal-lying crops like ferns and horsetails, which it gathered with its large muzzle. It likely fed at ground amount as a consequence of its small neck, and its teeth might have worn out swiftly from shearing via tough vegetation.
Judging from the LSC orientation in Nigersaurus, Sereno and enterprise hypothesized the animal commonly walked around with its snout pointed to the ground at a 67-degree angle. Photograph a moping teenager and you'll get the idea.
But that’s not all; in just its oddly shaped muzzle, the dinosaur was Outfitted with no below five hundred teeth (each “active” and alternative). The higher jaws contained 60 rows of modest, needle-formed teeth, when the lower jaws had no fewer than 68 quite sharp teeth.
The dental framework of Nigersaurus provides priceless insights into the dietary and ecological adaptations of sauropods. Its distinctive dental arrangement and swift tooth replacement mechanism emphasize the diverse evolutionary tactics that dinosaurs employed to thrive within their environments.
However, this has resulted in misunderstandings and occasional misuse in on the internet conversations. Though the attention has sparked curiosity about the dinosaur, What's more, it underscores the value of cultural sensitivity and exact interaction when discussing scientific discoveries.
It absolutely was discovered while in the loaded fossil vertebrate fauna of your Elrhaz Formation in a region termed Gadoufaoua, from the Republic of Niger. Fossils of this dinosaur had been to start with explained in 1976, but it absolutely was only named in 1999 following extra total remains were being located and described.
Those people jaws held anything never ever just before observed in a very sauropod dinosaur: It absolutely was one of several initial dinosaur skulls with tooth, or "dental," batteries.
Even though going for walks across a very flat area, Gabe built a remarkable discover—the bones of a whole new meat-feeding on dinosaur lay partially exposed at her feet. She brushed away the sand within the upper jaw.
The Nigersaurus, with its extraordinary dental assortment of five hundred slender teeth plus a wide, squared-off muzzle, serves like a remarkable window in the evolutionary paths that dinosaurs took to adapt to their environments. This specialised feeder, in contrast to most of its sauropod relations, evolved to snip and take in delicate, ample vegetation close to the bottom, revealing a unique niche inside the Cretaceous ecosystem.
The adductor muscle with the jaw seems to own connected for the quadrate as opposed to the supratemporal fenestra. The two this and another mastication muscles had been most likely weak, and Nigersaurus is estimated to obtain experienced one of several weakest bites in the sauropods.[3] On top of that, In keeping with Whitlock and colleagues in 2011, the compact, just about parallel mother nature in the tooth scratches and pits (brought on by grit, which would not be received as normally by significant-browsers) reveal that it ate comparatively gentle, herbaceous crops for instance lower-expanding ferns.
Nigersaurus is often a thirty-foot-extended plant-consuming dinosaur that lived 110 million many years ago in what has become Niger’s Sahara Desert. Nigersaurus lived in a very lush surroundings alongside the predatory dinosaur Suchomimus, the plant eaters ouranosaurus and lurdusaurus, and supercroc. Nigersaurus had a fragile cranium and a very huge mouth lined with teeth Specially adapted for browsing crops near to the ground.
Even the Nigersaurus skies were occupied – extensive-winged flying pterosaurs swooped overhead, from time to time diving down to grab a tasty fish out with the river.
[13] Due to the lateral orientation with the teeth, it in all probability wouldn't are in the position to chew.[one] Nigersaurus wore its tooth crowns down more quickly than other dinosaurian herbivores,[three] and its tooth alternative fee was the very best of any identified dinosaur. Every tooth was replaced after every single 14 days; the speed had Beforehand been believed decreased. In distinction to Nigersaurus, sauropods with reduced tooth replacement rates and broader tooth crowns are imagined to happen to be canopy browsers.[twelve]