NIGERSAURUS
a plant-eating rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Niger.
Pronunciation: NI-juhr-SOR-us
Meaning: Niger lizard
Author/s: Sereno et al. (
1999)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Gadoufaoua, Niger
Discovery Chart Position: #453
Nigersaurus taqueti
(Taquet's Niger Lizard)
Etymology
Nigersaurus is derived from "Niger" (the country in which it was orignally discovered) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).
The
species epithet,
taqueti, honors French paleontologist Philippe Taquet whose expeditions between 1965-1972 initiated large-scale paleontological exploration
in Niger.
Discovery
The first fossils that most likely belong to
Nigersaurus were discovered in the Elrhaz Formation (Tegama Group) at Gadoufaoua, Ténéré Desert, in the Niger Republic by French palaeontologists in 1970. They were reported as belonging to a dicraeosaurid allied with titanosaurs by Philip Taquet in 1976. However, the
holotype, MNN GAD517, is a partial skull and neck discovered at a Gadoufaoua site known as "level of the innocents" by Paul Sereno and colleagues in 1997.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Early Cretaceous
Stage: Aptian-Albian
Age range: 118-110 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 9 meters
Est. max. hip height: 2.5 meters
Est. max. weight: 2.5 tons
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Sereno PC, Beck AL, Dutheil DB, Larsson HCE, Lyon GH, Moussa B, Sadleir RW, Sidor CA, Varricchio DJ, Wilson GP, and Wilson JA (1999) "Cretaceous Sauropods from the Sahara and the Uneven Rate of Skeletal Evolution Among Dinosaurs".
Science, 286(5443): 1342-1347. DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5443.1342.
• Taquet P (1976) "
Géologie et paléontologie du gisement de Gadoufaoua. (Aptien du Niger)".
• Wilson JA and Sereno PC (2005) "Structure and Evolution of a Sauropod Tooth Battery". Page 157–177 in Curry-Rogers and Wilson "
The Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology".
• Sereno PC, Wilson JA, Witmer LM, Whitlock JA, Maga A,
et al. (2007) "Structural Extremes in a Cretaceous Dinosaur".
PLoS ONE, 2(11): e1230. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001230.
• Apesteguía S, Gallina PA and Haluza A (2010) "Not just a pretty face: anatomical peculiarities in the postcranium of Rebbachisaurids (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea)".
Historical Biology, 22(1-3): 165-174. DOI: 10.1080/08912960903411580.
• Lefebvre R, Allain R and Houssaye A (2023)
"What's inside a sauropod limb? First three-dimensional investigation of the limb long bone microanatomy of a sauropod dinosaur,
Nigersaurus taqueti (Neosauropoda, Rebbachisauridae), and implications for the weight-bearing function".
Palaeontology, 66(4): e12670.
DOI: 10.1111/pala.12670.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
NIGERSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/NIGERSAURUS›. Web access: 06th Mar 2026.
