Nigersaurus is a rebbachisaurid sauropod sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Niger. It was named in 1999 by Paul Sereno and his associates. It was one of the most specialized sauropods to exist, as well as one of the most common.
Physiology[]
Like its relatively close cousin Diplodocus, Nigersaurus was a sauropod with a bulky body, 4 large, erect, pillar-like legs (with one large claw on each hand and 3 clawed toes on each foot), and an extremely long, whip-like tail. However, it also differed from Diplodocus in a few different ways, as its neck was shorter than those of most other sauropods. Most notable of them all was its head, which was shaped differently from those of other sauropods; unlike any other jawed vertebrate, some of its jaw bones were rotated horizontally relative to the rest of its skull, giving it a downturned snout wider than most others and causing its teeth to be located far at the front of its skull. Its body would have been covered in scaly skin.
Diet[]
Nigersaurus was an herbivore, feeding on ferns, horsetails, and flowering plants. Its wide snout and laterally-oriented teeth allowed it to shear low-growing vegetation, and since its neck was shorter than those of most other sauropods, it would have had a shorter reach than them as well.
Ecology[]
Due to Nigersaurus' short neck, it was not as effective as a high-level browser as other sauropods, and mostly ate low-growing plants, using its wide snout to gather and shear as much food as possible; due to how weak its jaw muscles were, it would not have had a strong bite, and would have mainly fed on soft vegetation such as ferns or horsetails. Along with this, its eyes were placed further towards the top of its skull than those of other sauropods, giving it a 360° field of vision; as it mainly held its head at a downwards angle with its mouth facing towards the ground at all times, this adaptation was important, as it would've given it a better ability to spot predators from any direction. Most of all, its bones were extremely hollow (much more so than those of other sauropods), making its body less dense along with decreasing its body temperature and the amount of muscle power needed to move its body; this would have allowed it to cope with the high temperatures of its tropical habitat, and, according to some researchers, may be the reason why it and other rebbachisaurids survived into the Late Cretaceous while the diplodocids and dicraeosaurids did not. In all, Nigersaurus was the culmination of a slow and steady evolution of a low-level browsing sauropod that happened over the course of 59 million years.