A 2009 review via the British palaeontologist Mike P. Taylor and colleagues agreed that Nigersaurus was capable to feed Together with the downturned head and neck posture proposed from the 2007 review, but contested that this was the habitual posture of the animal. The analyze observed the "neutral" head and neck posture of modern animals doesn't essentially correspond for their habitual head posture.
It more argued the orientation in the semicircular canals may differ significantly inside modern day species, and is particularly therefore not dependable for identifying head posture.[23] This was supported through the Spanish palaeontologist Jesús Marugán-Lobón and colleagues inside of a 2013 study that recommended the strategies utilized by Sereno's team had been imprecise, and that Nigersaurus habitually held its head like other sauropods.[24]
Lifestyle restoration Nigersaurus was distinct in that its dorsal (again) vertebrae experienced paired pneumatic Areas at The bottom from the neural spines (the spines that projected upwards in the vertebrae). The presacral vertebrae (vertebrae before the sacrum) were heavily pneumatised to the point where by the column consisted of the number of hollow "shells", each divided by a thin septum in the center. It had minor to no cancellous bone, producing the centra thin bone plates full of air spaces. The vertebral arches ended up so intensely pierced by extensions of your exterior air sacs that in their aspect partitions very little remained but 2 mm (0.
“This can be the 1st sauropod having a tooth battery,” Sereno claims, adding that its jaw would've been angled downwards instead of forwards — Which is the reason Sereno had these difficulties fitting the bones alongside one another in the beginning.
8 ft) in size and weighing about 2 tons. Even with its modest dimensions compared to other sauropods, it obtained notice because of its exceptional anatomy, together with a broad muzzle resembling a vacuum cleaner and dental batteries consisting of hundreds of modest, needle-formed teeth arranged in columns.
” Our to start with week in the field continues to be breathtaking! Exceptional discoveries seem to be awaiting us around every dune. On our to start with working day, we located bones of your very long-necked dinosaur Nigersaurus. Nigersaurus, you could possibly don't forget, we named for bones collected on the final expedition below 3 a long time ago.
Inevitably, back while in the lab, Sereno had to request a second impression from colleagues who worked on fossil fish and also other reptiles prior to he figured it out.
On The idea of microtomography scans of cranium factors with the holotype specimen, Sereno and colleagues established a "prototype" Nigersaurus cranium they could study. Additionally they designed an endocast in the brain and scanned the semicircular canals of its inner ear, which they observed for being oriented horizontally. Of their 2007 study, they mentioned which the construction what dinosaur has 500 teeth of the occiput behind the cranium and cervical vertebrae would've constrained the upward and downward motion of your neck as well as the rotation with the cranium.
Nigersaurus's downward-experiencing mouth and broad dental arrangement advise it grazed on floor-level vegetation as an alternative to browsing significant vegetation.
When the first fossils of Nigersaurus were learned in 1976, paleontologists couldn’t realize them as a whole new species. It really is because the skeleton fossils ended up very hollow and distorted.
The identify "Nigersaurus" has started controversy and discussion within the scientific Group and outside of on account of its probable for misinterpretation and unintended connotations.
In 2020, the French palaeontologist Julien Benoit and colleagues examined lateral semicircular canal correlation to head posture on modern mammals, and located that whilst there was substantial correlation among the reconstructed and real head postures, the plane of your semicircular canal wasn't held horizontally from the resting pose as inferred.
Nigersaurus did not show the identical modifications noticed while in the jaws of other dinosaurs with dental batteries, or mammals with elaborate chewing capabilities. The reduced jaw was L-shaped and divided in the subcylindrical transverse ramus, which contained the teeth, as well as back again ramus, which was additional lightweight and was The situation for almost all of the muscle attachments. It was distinctive in which the tooth row expanded to the perimeters from the aircraft of the principle ramus in the lower jaw.
Its shorter neck might have also been an adaptation to this floor-level feeding conduct, since it would not have already been equipped to reach higher into trees like Various other sauropods.