Nigersaurus (meaning "Niger reptile") is a genus of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur that lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 115 to 105 million years ago. It was discovered in the Elrhaz Formation in an area called Gadoufaoua, in Niger. Fossils of this dinosaur were first described in 1976, but it was only named in 1999. The genus contains a single species, N. taqueti, named after French palaeontologist Philippe Taquet, who discovered the first remains. At 9 m (30 ft) long—small for a sauropod—it weighed around 4 tonnes, comparable to a modern elephant. It had a wide muzzle filled with more than 500 teeth, which were replaced every 14 days. Unlike other tetrapods, its jaws were wider than the skull, its teeth were located far to the front, and it fed with its head close to the ground. It lived in a riparian habitat, and its diet probably consisted of soft plants, such as ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It is one of the most common fossil vertebrates found in the area, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, as well as large theropods and crocodylomorphs.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigersaurus

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1788:

The armed tender HMS Supply, the first ship of the First Fleet, arrived at Botany Bay, Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany_Bay

1884:

Welsh physician William Price was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; he was acquitted in the subsequent trial, which led to the legalisation of cremation in the United Kingdom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Price_(physician)

1915:

Japanese Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-One_Demands

1977:

The mysterious Legionnaires' disease was found to be caused by a previously unknown bacterium now known as Legionella (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires%27_disease

1983:

Thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored gold medals to American athlete Jim Thorpe, who had had them stripped for playing semi-professional baseball before the 1912 Summer Olympics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

scuttle: (transitive) To deliberately sink a ship or boat by order of the vessel's commander or owner. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scuttle

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

"Is," "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment. ∴ ∵   --Robert Anton Wilson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson