Canon PowerShot SD700 IS
ƒ/2.8
5.8 mm
1/160

[update: photo replaced with an Googlesaur hunting near the Google volley ball pit… until I can figure out the thread below; other dino head photo was embargoed for a bit]

A featherweight fern-mower, with Giro-helmet styling, this offbeat dino skull houses 1000 needle shaped teeth, jammed together in a row. No other known animal has a row of teeth quite like it, extending wider than the skull… and it lacks gnashing molars.

Paul Sereno gave an exciting introduction to some of his recent finds.

This 110 million-year-old Nigersaurus Taqueti is a distant cousin of Diplodocus, but shared African waterways with SuperCroc.

I thought it looked like Jar Jar Binks… maybe with big Golem eyes.

13 responses to “Dinosaurs”

  1. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    hoo! No molars for a herbivore!? That’s an evolutionary deviation I wouldn’t have predicted.

    Apparently that strategy did not do very well, given nobody else chose to adopt that mechanism.

    Reply
  2. PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE Avatar
    PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

    From what Dinosaur, come from the bones, looking strangly like the letters G.O.O.G.L.E ? : )

    Reply
  3. benjiman Avatar
    benjiman

    Steve, no creature, living or dead deserves to be so besmiched as to be compared to Jar Jar. The poor thing can’t even defend itself!

    🙂

    Reply
  4. rakerman Avatar
    rakerman

    Um, I thought we weren’t supposed to publish any photos of the fossils.

    Reply
  5. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    kidding? Paul Sereno seemed fine with it, and was in most of the photos I took…

    Meesa gonna Google

    Reply
  6. Carl T. Bergstrom Avatar
    Carl T. Bergstrom

    That was my sense as well – Sereno told us we could look, photograph for our own use, etc., but he asked that we please not publish anywhere that is open to the public, including blogs, flickr, etc. Please take this one down….

    Reply
  7. rakerman Avatar
    rakerman

    Not at all kidding. I heard Sereno say at least once, and someone else as well, photograph all you want, but do not post the photos anywhere (public) until Sereno has had a chance to publish.

    Reply
  8. aefitzhugh Avatar
    aefitzhugh

    Before the photo gets taken down — there are only like 70 teeth visible, nothing like 1000. Is there some kind of detail not visible in the high res photo?

    Reply
  9. borazivkovic Avatar
    borazivkovic

    Yes, Paul was quite explicit – you can take pictures, but not post them anywhere until the papers get published.

    Reply
  10. mndoci Avatar
    mndoci

    Second that …. Paul asked that the photos not be displayed

    Reply
  11. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Plane just landed…. Gotcha. Will replace with placeholder for now… and coordinate with Sereno.

    (It’s so strange that he did not mention any of this while I spent 20 minutes photographing everything around him as he gave me and others a spectacular docent’s tour. I’m guessing the request was made during his breakout session, which I missed)

    Reply
  12. RRNeal Avatar
    RRNeal

    Upon go-ahead, please, please repost. I missed the original pic and look forward to Nigersaurus Taqueti.

    Reply
  13. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Finally…. here you go:

    Googlesaurus

    Reply

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