Nigersaurus(meaning Niger reptile) was a sauropod belonging to the family Rebbachisauridae and to the group known as Nigersaurinae. Now that we know the classification of this sauropod lets talk about its past. Nigersaurus was discovered in an expedition to Niger during the year 1965-1972, and the person who discovered Nigersaurus was Philippe Taquet(it was mentioned in a paper describing the find but not naming the new dinosaur). But although it had been finally uncovered from the earth it was poorly known(due to its bones being extremely fragile due to airsacs in its bones) and the fossils were also disarticulated. And it was not until Paul Sereno uncovered more remains in 1997-2000 were he published a more detailed paper on the find and also named the dinosaur.
Now lets talk about the looks of this unusual dinosaur. First let´s talk about the tail, not really much to say its tail was long and got thinner as it went. The legs were robust enough to support its 4 ton weight. But when we get to the neck its a bit strange becasue for a sauropod it was kinda short(it only had 13 cervical vertebrae), and its head was by far the strangest feature. Because the skull actually pointed downwards which meant it was probably a grazer(which gave it the nickname of “Mesozoic cow”) feeding most of the time on plants at ground level, but it could´ve probably also have fed on bushes and maybe small trees on occasion. But that concludes the appearence of this “Mesozoic cow” now to talk about its general stats:
Length:9 meters
Height:1.5-1.6 meters
Weight:4 tons
Dinosaurinfo 