Anatomically odd African dinosaur sucked up the greenery

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Paleontologists Thursday unveiled a 110 million-year-old African sauropod dinosaur with a weird anatomy including a mouth that powered through ground greenery like a vacuum, and almost translucent skull bones.

The fossilized dinosaur, which was found Niger, has been dubbed Nigersaurus Taqueti.

Paul Sereno, who led the effort explained at National Geographic headquarters here, gave the creature the Taqueti name in honor of French paleontologist Philippe Taquet who first brought to light this unusual animal in 1976 after the first fossils were found in the 1950s.

Didier Duthiel, a team member of Sereno, of the University of Chicago, first spied the skull bones of the Nigersaurus in 1997. On that expedition and a subsequent one, teams rounded...