Hairy Museum of Natural History

University of Michigan paleontologist Jeffrey Wilson has recently published a new study of the skull of Nemegtosaurus.

Nemegtosaurus belongs to a group of sauropods known as titanosaurs, which were extremely diverse yet remain relatively poorly known. Most well-known sauropods, like Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Diplodocus, had their heyday during the Jurassic Period, then went into decline at the beginning of the Cretaceous period which followed. Titanosaurs, however, thrived while these other sauropods went extinct, and titanosaur fossils are known from Cretaceous rocks on every continent.

Exactly why this happened is still uncertain. Wilson’s study shows that the Nemegtosaurus skull had a series of openings and grooves at the tip of its snout, which might have had some function in a particular feeding strategy.

Wilson worked with Bonnie Miljour, an artist at the U-M Museum of Paleontology, to create a new reconstruction of the skull of Nemegtosaurus. Their work literally helps put a new face on these enigmatic giants.

Found on Dr. Michael Ryan’s excellent Palaeoblog.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Recent Discoveries.