The fact that until about 65-million years ago dinosaurs dominated our land is as fascinating as it is unfathomable.
For anybody even remotely interested in the evolution of life forms on our planet that goes back 230 million years, understanding how dinosaurs existed is enthralling. This is why National Geographic’s latest exhibition that displays original fossils of the Nigersaurus — one of the most bizarre dinosaurs ever, is worth checking out.
Remants of which were first discovered in 1993, the Nigersaurus was bizarre because it had a long shovel shaped vaccum cleaner type muzzle that sucked up plants with its 600-teeth full jaw — hence dubbed by some as the “mesozoic lawnmower”. If broken, these teeth could regenerate rapidly as each tooth had 10 replacement ones behind them. It grazed like a cow with its head down, this was unusual as dinosaurs are known to eat from trees with their necks up long and high. At 30-feet long, you can imagine its bulk, but funnily it had fragile feather-light bones — some of which are transluscent.
The exhibition will feature a life size reconstructed skeleton of the animal, a flesh model of its head and neck, and a cast of its brain.
The exhibition “Extreme Dinosaur: Africa’s Long-Necked Fern Mower” began yesterday at the National Geographic Museum at Explorers Hall (1145 17th Street, N.W., Washington D.C.), and will run until Tuesday March 18, 2008; admission is free. For more information you can visit www.ngmuseum.org.