Dino's Vacuum-Shaped Mouth Packed With Teeth

Its broad muzzle contained more than 50 columns of teeth lined up tightly along the front edge of it's jaw. Behind each tooth more were lined up as replacements when one broke off.

Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.

Nigersaurus also had a backbone consisting of more air than bone.

"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use -- but we know they did it, and they did it well," Jeffrey Wilson, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and an expedition team member, said in a statement.

The dinosaur's anatomy and lifestyle were to be detailed in the Nov. 21 issue of PLoS ONE, the online journal from the Public Library of Science.

The first bones of Nigersaurus were picked up in Niger in the 1950s by French paleontologists led by Philippe Taquet, but the species was not named at that time. Sereno and his team honored this early work by naming Nigersaurus taqueti after the nation where it was found and the French scientist.

The research was partly funded by National Geographic where, Sereno said, "you can see the hideous jaw elements in person."