# Nigersaurus taqueti

> A small rebbachisaurid sauropod from the Early Cretaceous of Niger with a broad, straight-edged muzzle packed with hundreds of teeth that were replaced very quickly: a Cretaceous lawnmower.

- Classification: Dinosauria (clade) > Saurischia (clade) > Sauropodomorpha (clade) > Sauropoda (clade) > Diplodocoidea (superfamily) > Rebbachisauridae (family) > Nigersaurus (genus) > Nigersaurus taqueti (species)
- Length: 9 m
- Hip height: 1.6–2 m
- Mass: 1.9–4 t
- Age: 121.4–100.5 million years ago (Early Cretaceous)
- Fossils found in: Elrhaz Formation (Agadez Region); Niger
- Diet: herbivore
- Described: Paul C. Sereno et al., 1999

Canonical page: https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/nigersaurus-taqueti
Last updated: 2026-09-27

## Overview

Nigersaurus taqueti lived in what is now the Sahara of Niger in the Early Cretaceous, when the region was a land of rivers and floodplains. French expeditions led by Philippe Taquet found its first bones in the 1960s and 1970s at Gadoufaoua; Paul Sereno's team collected better material in the 1990s and named it in 1999.

For a sauropod it was small, about 9 m long. Its skull was extremely light, with paper-thin bones, and its jaws ended in a wide, straight muzzle lined with more than 500 teeth in columns, each replaced every few weeks. Sereno et al. (2007) argued it grazed close to the ground.

Many of these interpretations are debated: the head posture reconstructed from its inner ear, and the exact tooth replacement rate, which D'Emic et al. (2013) estimated from growth lines in the teeth.

## Name meaning

"Niger lizard"; taqueti honours French paleontologist Philippe Taquet, who led the first expeditions to its site (Sereno et al. 1999).

## Sources

1. Cohen, K. M., Harper, D. A. T., Gibbard, P. L. & Car, N. (2023). International Chronostratigraphic Chart (v2023/09). International Commission on Stratigraphy. https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2023-09.pdf
2. D'Emic, M. D., Whitlock, J. A., Smith, K. M., Fisher, D. C. & Wilson, J. A. (2013). Evolution of high tooth replacement rates in sauropod dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 8(7): e69235. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069235
3. Paul, G. S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (2nd edition). Princeton University Press.
4. Sereno, P. C., Beck, A. L., Dutheil, D. B., et al. (1999). Cretaceous sauropods from the Sahara and the uneven rate of skeletal evolution among dinosaurs. Science 286: 1342-1347. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5443.1342
5. Sereno, P. C., Wilson, J. A., Witmer, L. M., Whitlock, J. A., Maga, A., Ide, O. & Rowe, T. A. (2007). Structural extremes in a Cretaceous dinosaur. PLoS ONE 2(11): e1230. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001230

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Cite as: "Nigersaurus taqueti". DinoDex. https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/nigersaurus-taqueti (updated 2026-09-27).