Outline: a typical sauropod
Nigersaurus
NYE-jer-SORE-us
"Niger lizard"
Type species Nigersaurus taqueti
- Lived
- 121 to 101 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 9 m (30 ft)
- Group
- Sauropods, Rebbachisauridae
- Found in
- Niger
- Named by
- Sereno et al. 1999
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical sauropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
110 million years ago
Field notes
About Nigersaurus
What it was like
Nigersaurus was a sauropod with a short neck and a very strange head. Its mouth was wide and flat, like a vacuum cleaner, with hundreds of small teeth lined up across the front. Worn teeth were replaced very quickly.
It probably grazed low plants, holding its head close to the ground. Its skull bones were very thin, and many were full of air spaces.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now Niger. It comes from the Elrhaz Formation, a land of rivers shared with the spinosaur Suchomimus, the sail-backed plant eater Ouranosaurus and the predator Eocarcharia.
How it was found
Sereno and colleagues named Nigersaurus in 1999. The type species is Nigersaurus taqueti.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Rebbachisauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: P. C. Sereno, A. L. Beck, and D. B. Dutheil, H. C. E. Larsson, G. H. Lyon, B. Moussa, R. W. Sadleir, C. A. Sidor, D. J. Varricchio, G. P. Wilson, J. A. Wilson. 1999. Cretaceous sauropods from the Sahara and the uneven rate of skeletal evolution among dinosaurs. Science 286:1342-1347