Nigersaurus experienced a amazing dental battery consisting of somewhere around 500 narrow, closely packed teeth, organized in rows together its extensive, flat jaw.
The nickname "dinosaur with 500 teeth" comes from Nigersaurus's distinctive dental battery. Its jaw held roughly five hundred slender teeth, organized in tightly packed rows, and these teeth ended up constantly replaced all through its lifestyle.
Everyday living restoration Nigersaurus was distinctive in that its dorsal (again) vertebrae experienced paired pneumatic Areas at the base from the neural spines (the spines that projected upwards from the vertebrae). The presacral vertebrae (vertebrae in front of the sacrum) were heavily pneumatised to the point where by the column consisted of the number of hollow "shells", Each and every divided by a thin septum in the middle. It experienced minimal to no cancellous bone, producing the centra slender bone plates filled with air Areas. The vertebral arches have been so heavily pierced by extensions from the exterior air sacs that in their facet walls little remained but two mm (0.
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There was debate on irrespective of whether its head was habitually held downwards, or horizontally like other sauropods. It lived inside of a riparian habitat, and its diet regime almost certainly consisted of sentimental vegetation, including ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It is Among the most typical fossil vertebrates uncovered in the region, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, in addition to significant theropods and crocodylomorphs.
If legitimate, it might starkly distinction with most sauropod reconstructions, demonstrating the animal Keeping its head horizontally.
The fast substitute of its teeth, each individual 14 times, indicates the Nigersaurus confronted significant evolutionary pressures to maintain a constant source of purposeful teeth to manage with abrasive plant substance. This adaptation underlines the evolutionary crucial to enhance feeding efficiency in an natural environment exactly where foods sources different and Level of competition was fierce.
Whilst dwelling to other big herbivorous dinosaurs, it absolutely was also inhabited by theropods (a gaggle of bipedal, 3-toed carnivorous dinosaurs that include Tyrannosaurus Rex
Paleontologist Paul Sereno described Nigersaurus as “the weirdest dinosaur I’ve ever found” if the dinosaur’s uncommon features were being very first discovered in 2007. The teeth were being notably noteworthy mainly because they ended up arranged in dental batteries, which are generally located in beaked herbivores like Triceratops and Edmontosaurus, but are scarce between sauropods.
One particular for one of the most distinct attributes on the Nigersaurus was its teeth. It's got five hundred teeth! They ended up peg-like and tailored for grazing on plants.
The fragile nature from the Nigersaurus’s slender teeth and delicate cranium manufactured excavation and preservation notably tough. Yet, these worries were being met with revolutionary techniques in fossil Restoration and 3D reconstruction, enabling researchers to piece with each other the intricate details of its jaw as well as astonishing array of five hundred teeth.
Nigersaurus lived in what is now the Sahara Desert over the mid-Cretaceous time period, close to one hundred fifteen to a hundred and five million many years in the past, inside a lush, riverine habitat with plentiful flowers.
‘ amusing-searching cranium, battery of teeth, and modest dimension for the sauropod have undoubtedly won it an area inside the annals of dinosaur oddities.
Nigersaurus was almost certainly a browser, and fed with its head near the ground. The area of its Mind that detected scent was small, Despite the fact that its Mind 500 teeth dinosaur dimension was corresponding to that of other dinosaurs. There has been discussion on irrespective of whether its head was habitually held downwards, or horizontally like other sauropods.