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>
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