Paleontologist must not have a PR Department 
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...88-663,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...88-663,00.html
A PALEONTOLOGIST has unveiled a 110-million-year-old African dinosaur with a weird anatomy, including a mouth that powered through greenery like a vacuum.
The fossilised sauropod dinosaur, found in Niger, has been dubbed Nigersaurus taqueti.
Stretching more than 13m, the Nigersaurus was a younger, smaller cousin of the North American Diplodocus.
Paul Sereno said at the National Geographic headquarters that it was able to sustain an elephant-sized body with what one could call an ultra-light head.
It would have been hard-pressed to lift its head above its back, and grazed on plants near the ground more like a type of cow rather than a reptilian giraffe.
Its vacuum-like mouth was studded with no fewer than 500 teeth, including sets of natural "replacement" teeth, to help it keep ploughing through its diet of horsetails and ferns.
"Among dinosaurs, the Nigersaurus sets the Guinness record for tooth replacement," Mr Sereno joked.
And its backbone was made of more air then bone, the scientists said.
"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use, but we know that they did," said Jeffrey Wilson, of the University of Michigan.
- AFP
The fossilised sauropod dinosaur, found in Niger, has been dubbed Nigersaurus taqueti.
Stretching more than 13m, the Nigersaurus was a younger, smaller cousin of the North American Diplodocus.
Paul Sereno said at the National Geographic headquarters that it was able to sustain an elephant-sized body with what one could call an ultra-light head.
It would have been hard-pressed to lift its head above its back, and grazed on plants near the ground more like a type of cow rather than a reptilian giraffe.
Its vacuum-like mouth was studded with no fewer than 500 teeth, including sets of natural "replacement" teeth, to help it keep ploughing through its diet of horsetails and ferns.
"Among dinosaurs, the Nigersaurus sets the Guinness record for tooth replacement," Mr Sereno joked.
And its backbone was made of more air then bone, the scientists said.
"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use, but we know that they did," said Jeffrey Wilson, of the University of Michigan.
- AFP
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