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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).