The realm that Nigersaurus roamed all Individuals millions of yrs back may well have already been idyllic in sure techniques, but it really was not with out its many considerable potential risks.
They consisted of vertically stacked columns of replaceable teeth. Every time the top tooth wore out in almost any provided column, the one ideal underneath it would transfer upwards and go ahead and take old tooth's place.
Steady Tooth Substitute: Teeth had been replaced each and every 14 days, guaranteeing a sharp, functional dental battery to manage with constant wear from grazing.
The Nigersaurus roamed the lush landscapes of the center Cretaceous period, in what is currently the Sahara Desert of Niger. This space, the moment teeming with life, offered a loaded tapestry of soft, leafy vegetation that was ideal for the Nigersaurus’s specialised eating plan.
e. Apatosaurus. In addition they had predators that lived in a similar area and a person of their predators was theropoda.
lived in what is now Niger about a hundred and fifteen to one hundred and five million yrs in the past, over the Aptian and Albian ages from the mid-Cretaceous. It likely lived in habitats dominated by inland floodplains (a riparian zone).
The enamel over the teeth of Nigersaurus was hugely asymmetrical, ten times thicker over the outwards experiencing side than on the inner side.
We are not speaking about AA Duracells in this article. Dental batteries were efficient food processing applications employed by quite a few plant-feeding on dinos.
Placing together these odd anatomical details, Nigersaurus seems to are already very well tailored to small browsing; most certainly it swept its neck forwards and backwards parallel to the ground, hoovering up any vegetation inside of effortless get to. (Other sauropods, which experienced a lot longer necks, might have nibbled over the higher branches of trees, even though even this remains a issue of some dispute.)
The most distinctive characteristics of Nigersaurus was its mouth, which was Geared up with numerous compact, tightly packed teeth arranged in rows. This authorized it to effectively crop and grind tough plant subject, including ferns and horsetails.
This allowed the dinosaur to own a continuing offer of clean teeth, permitting it to continue to effectively process plant product at the same time 500 teeth dinosaur as its teeth have on down.
This Nigersaurus was a hatchling, almost certainly lower than a person yr from hatching when it died and was fossilized.
The primary fossils of Nigersaurus were being found while in the Elrhaz Development of Niger inside the calendar year 1997. Nevertheless, even more research unveiled that Nigersaurus was basically a member of a different group of sauropods called the rebbachisaurids.
People jaws held something by no means prior to noticed inside a sauropod dinosaur: It was on the list of to start with dinosaur skulls with tooth, or "dental," batteries.