Nemegtosaurus

Nemegtosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Sauropodomorpha
Infraorder:	Sauropoda
(unranked):	Titanosauria
Family:	Nemegtosauridae
Genus:	Nemegtosaurus Nowinski, 1971
Species
N. mongoliensis Nowinski, 1971 (type)

Nemegtosaurus (meaning 'Nemegt lizard') was a sauropod dinosaur from Late Cretaceous Period of what is now Mongolia. It was named after the Nemegt Basin in the Gobi Desert, where the remains — a single skull — were found. It may have had a long, sloping head and, like most sauropods, had peg-shaped teeth.

The type species, Nemegtosaurus mongoliensis, was first described by Nowinski in 1971. A second species, N. pachi, was described by Dong in 1977, but is a nomen dubium.

Comparisons between the scleral rings of Nemegtosaurus and modern birds and reptiles suggest that it may have been cathemeral, active throughout the day at short intervals.^[1]

References

1. ^ Schmitz, L.; Motani, R. (2011). "Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology". Science 332 (6030): 705–708. doi:10.1126/science.1200043. PMID 21493820. 

External links

• Nemegtosaurus on the Dinosaur Mailing List.
• page on Nemegtosaurus

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