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Episode 246 is all about Nigersaurus, the Darth Vader vacuum cleaner of the Cretaceous.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

A new Psittacosaurus species from Mongolia, amitabha, was described with gastroliths and a great skull source

A 10 year old boy in Guangdong Province, China stumbled upon a nest of 11 dinosaur eggs source

A college student In North Dakota found a Triceratops skull while on a paleontology dig source

Visitors to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science can now see volunteers working on preparing a Triceratops on their lab source

A 6.6 ft (2 m) long sauropod femur was found near Cognac, France source

In New York, on Long Island, two new attractions recently opened up at the WAC Lighting Hall of Science source

The dinosaur of the day: Nigersaurus

Rebbachisaurid sauropod that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now the Republic of Niger (Elrhaz Formation)

Quadrupedal, and had thick hind legs and a large tail

About 30 ft (9 m) long, with a short neck (only 13 vertebrae)

Weighed about 4 tons (similar to a modern elephant)

Scientists have found a fossilized jawbone of a hatchling, Paul Sereno said it was so small it could “fit on top of a silver dollar”

Lightly built, with lots of air spaces in the skeleton (highly pneumatised)

Tail was solid (unlike most of the rest of the body)

Front legs were about 2/3 the length of the hind legs

Nigersaurus was described as a “Mesozoic cow”

Paul Sereno has described it as something between Darth Vader and a vacuum cleaner

Paul Sereno also described it as a “hammerhead shark with legs” and a “Mesozoic lawnmower” because of its teeth

Had more than active 500 teeth in its mouth (maybe up to 1000 teeth), and replaced teeth about every 14 days (faster than a hadrosaur)

The 500 teeth were placed in 50 vertical columns, and the teeth were arranged in broad, horizontal rows at the front of the snout (the area where its teeth were are wider than the rest of the skull)

Teeth were narrow and needle shaped

All teeth were located far to the front of the mouth

Had a very broad jaw, with a flat edge

Snout was more broad than hadrosaurs

Had large nostrils and a fleshy snout

May have had a keratinous sheath around its jaws

Had a proportionately short snout

Jaws were wider than the skull

Jaw was light weight and had a few fenestrae

Had weak jaw muscles

Had a weak bite, possibly one of the weakest sauropod bites

Jaw probably moved in up and down motions

Gathered and sliced soft vegetation

Probably ate soft plans, like immature ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms (scientists think whatever plant it was was widespread, since Nigersaurus and the iguanodontian Lurdusaurus were the most common megaherbivores around in their time)

Probably was a low browser, and ate food with its head close to the ground

Probably kept its head down, though there’s debate

Sereno and others did a study in 2007 which found Nigersaurus kept its head rotated about 70 degrees downwards (different compared to the usual horizontal position of other sauropods)

In 2009, Mike Taylor, Mathew Wedel, and Darren Naish found that Nigersaurus could have eaten food with its head and neck at the 67 degree angle, but did not think Nigersaurus always kept its head at that angle (found that modern animals have a wide variation of semicircular canals, which are not reliable to determine head posture). In 2013 Jesús Marugán-Lobón and others found that Sereno and his team’s methods were imprecise, and Nigersaurus probably kept its head horizontal like other sauropods

Had many hollow bones, including in the neck vertebrae

Jeffrey Wilson said “The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use—but we know they did it, and they did it well”

Because of its light spine, would have been hard to lift its head much

Some scientists think Nigersaurus’ vertebrae allowed it to have more range of motion, so it may have kept its head more horizontal most of the time

In 2017, Lucio M. Ibiricu and others found the rebbachisaurids had pneumatic skeletons to help decrease the amount of energy needed to moves its body and decrease the amount of heat generated in doing so (they tended to live in hot tropical and subtropical areas)

Skull was small and also light, with large fenestrae (openings) and thin bones

According to Sereno and his team, Nigersaurus skull was designed as “maximum strength with minimum material”

Had large eyes

Had a small sized brain compared to its body

Had small oflactory bulbs, so even though it had a large, fleshy snout, did not have a great sense of smell

Type species is Nigersaurus taqueti

Fossils found in a 1965-72 expedition by Philippe Taquet

Fossils described in 1976 but wasn’t named until 1999, after more fossils were found

Named in 1999 by Paul Sereno and others

Paul Sereno and team found more fossils in 1997 and 2000 (needed more fossils to describe, the penumacity of the skeleton made them harder to preserve). Apparently some of the fossils in the skull were so thin you could see a strong beam of light through them

Fossils are in the National Museum of Niger

Genus name means “Niger reptile”

Species name is in honor of Philippe Taquet

Probably lived in floodplains

One of the most common dinosaurs found in its area

Lived among large theropods and crocodylomorphs

Sereno said that Nigersaurus was easy prey, especially for Sarcosuchus, a crocodyliform

Lived around iguanodontian Lurdusaurus, and other herbivores including Ouranosaurus and Elrhazosaurus, and theropods like Suchomimus and Kyptops. Other animals in the area included pterosaurs, fish, and sharks

Fun Fact: Dinosaurs had crops in the Early Cretaceous (if not earlier).