Nemegtosaurus
Nemegtosaurus was a long-necked plant-eater that lived in what is now Mongolia. It is known mostly from a single skull, so scientists have to guess what the rest of its body looked like.1
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Fun facts
Nemegtosaurus is only known from a skull and lower jaw, so its full body shape is a mystery.1
Its skull was lightly built and very long, with a snout that bent downward.2
The first complete sclerotic ring (a ring of bones in the eye) ever found in a sauropod was discovered in the Nemegtosaurus skull.2
It lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 72 to 68 million years ago.1
Nemegtosaurus had lance-shaped teeth with a crown-to-root ratio of 2:1.2
Its skull shows features similar to both Diplodocus and Dicraeosaurus, but it is placed in its own family, Nemegtosauridae.24
The occipital condyle (the ball that connects the skull to the neck) pointed downward and forward, meaning its head was held at an angle.2
Most asked questions about Nemegtosaurus
?How big was Nemegtosaurus?
About 12 to 13 metres (39 to 43 feet) long and weighed around 20 tonnes (44,000 pounds).31
?What did Nemegtosaurus eat?
It was a plant-eater, but scientists are not sure exactly which plants it ate because no plant fossils were found in the Gobi Desert where it lived.3
?When did Nemegtosaurus live?
It lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 72 to 68 million years ago.1
?Where was Nemegtosaurus found?
Its skull was found in the Nemegt Basin in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia.3
?Could Nemegtosaurus defend itself?
An adult Nemegtosaurus, at about 12 metres long, may have been able to defend against the predator Tarbosaurus, but young ones would have been vulnerable.3
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Nemegtosaurus
- Named by
- Nowinski 19714
- Group
- Long-necks
- Family / clade
- Nemegtosauridae4
- Classification
- Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Titanosauria > Macronaria4
- Age of the rocks
- 90 to 66 million years (Coniacian / Maastrichtian)4
- Rock formations
- Tamayama, Subashi, Nemegt4
- Countries
- Japan, China, Mongolia4
- Fossil records
- 3 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Discovery
- Nemegtosaurus was named by Polish paleontologist Aleksander Nowinski in 1971, based on a skull found by the Polish-Mongolian expedition in 1965 in the Nemegt Basin of the Gobi Desert.21
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure what the rest of Nemegtosaurus's body looked like, because only its skull has been found.1
Where the facts come from
- Nemegtosaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- FROM THE UPPERMOST CRETACEO US OF MONGOLIA (palaeontologia.pan.pl)
- Nemegtosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- Nemegtosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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