That broad muzzle with its Nigersaurus teeth was ideal for scooping up ferns, horsetails and various low-lying crops. And Using the bountiful teeth, the dinosaur would've experienced no trouble shearing by way of this vegetation.
It lived inside of a riparian habitat, and its diet regime almost certainly consisted of soppy crops, like ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It can be The most common fossil vertebrates found in the region, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, and also big theropods and crocodylomorphs.
Nigersaurus experienced more than 500 teeth arranged in dental batteries (rows of teeth stacked upon other rows of teeth), which allowed it to effectively graze on reduced-lying vegetation like ferns and horsetails. Worn teeth had been consistently changed to take care of Niversaurus' helpful feeding.
The Nigersaurus roamed the lush landscapes of the center Cretaceous interval, in what is now the Sahara Desert of Niger. This spot, when teeming with everyday living, offered a abundant tapestry of soft, leafy vegetation that was perfect for the Nigersaurus’s specialized eating plan.
In Nigersaurus' scenario, the upper jaws contained sixty columns of tiny, needle-formed upper teeth. And no much less than sixty eight pretty sharp teeth have been present on the decrease jaws. Tallied with each other, higher jaw and reduce jaw, the beast experienced more than five hundred personal teeth.
Its exceptional dental composition indicates that it may have experienced a distinct feeding strategy compared to other sauropods, and its existence in Africa indicates that these types of dinosaurs ended up a lot more widespread than Earlier assumed.
Ultimately, back inside the lab, Sereno had to request a 2nd opinion from colleagues who worked on fossil fish and also other reptiles prior to he figured it out.
Nigersaurus experienced a jaw construction as opposed to some other dinosaur. Its broad, squared-off muzzle housed more than five hundred slender, pencil-like teeth. These teeth weren't evenly dispersed but have been organized in columns and rows, with as a lot of as nine substitute teeth powering Every active tooth.
This feature has captured general public consideration, making what dinosaur has 500 teeth it Probably the most unforgettable facets of Nigersaurus's biology, especially in on the web discussions.
While other weighty animals examined (like rhinoceroses) had thick and variable bone cortices, the cortex of Nigersaurus was instead slender. These researchers instructed that the microanatomy of sauropods wasn't affected by drastic selective stress because of bearing excess weight, but that options including the columnar limbs (as seen in elephants), pneumaticity, and fleshy foot pads and cartilage calm stress within the bones. Additionally they instructed that sauropods may perhaps hence are lighter in fat than envisioned for their sizing, supporting the lowest physique mass estimates for these dinosaurs.[22]
What's a dinosaur to carry out with chompers such as this animal's teeth? Nibbling on treetops most likely wasn't an alternative. Nigersaurus wasn't just compact-bodied for your sauropod, Furthermore, it had a reasonably limited neck.
In 2020, the French palaeontologist Julien Benoit and colleagues analyzed lateral semicircular canal correlation to go posture on contemporary mammals, and found that whilst there was significant correlation concerning the reconstructed and genuine head postures, the aircraft in the semicircular canal was not held horizontally while in the resting pose as inferred.
Dinosaur-hunters are used to obtaining dental batteries in beaked herbivores similar to the horned Triceratops and shovel-billed Edmontosaurus. Nonetheless they're rare among the sauropods.
Limb content along with a scapula uncovered close by have been also referred to exactly the same specimen. These fossils are housed in the Countrywide Museum of Niger.