In Niger, old dinosaurs spark new excitement

When I first heard that there were dinosaur remains at a Museum in Niamey, I was shocked to hear this. But I didn’t doubt the story. While on assignment in Niger recently, I decided to get to Niamey to take a look at these dinosaurs. One morning I left my hotel which was just up […]

When I first heard that there were dinosaur remains at a Museum in Niamey, I was shocked to hear this. But I didn’t doubt the story. While on assignment in Niger recently, I decided to get to Niamey to take a look at these dinosaurs. One morning I left my hotel which was just up the road, made inquiries and soon I was ushered into the Museum after paying the required fee.
The skeletons of dinosaurs can be seen in the huge cage at the National Museum, and they constitute an awesome sight. Two are of dinosaurs, while the other seems to be that of a massive, intimidating alligator. All of these are set within a huge cage which has been made to accommodate the lot of them. But the dinosaur which is said to be herbivorous is the one that truly intimidates. Its partner the carnivorous one is no less intimidating. The former stands upright, adopt a ferocious pose, and now may seem to glare at visitors. So, the cage becomes a helpful barrier between the human being and the dinosaurs.
You really cannot forget a visit to the dinosaur cage, and it is quite a relief that the dinosaurs are not alive. Here is a huge creature which once flourished in an Africa that was well-watered and characterised by rivers, lakes and vast vegetation. The present day Sahara desert was once a lovely, green part of the continent. The mind tries to go back to a distant time when dinosaurs roamed these parts. But the human mind has its limit. It is an inadequate tool for such exploration.
The dinosaurs are said to be some 100 million years old, a staggering statistic by any stretch of the imagination. The good thing about the dinosaurs is that it is not likely that they did anything that negatively affected the future of the planet. It is man who came upon the scene only quite recently, who has done so much to wreck the planet by destroying its natural flowing rivers, and creating all sorts of awful ideas, chemicals and weapons. The dinosaur did not create nuclear weapons, or weapons of mass destruction or untoward ideas. It is so hard not to think about this while visiting. It simply acted out the role nature assigned to it.
Visitors to the museum, visibly excited, look upon the dinosaurs as examples of creatures which had a positive, rather than a destructive attitude to the planet. The guide at the museum says that the creatures’ remains were found about ten years ago at a site in the desert very close to Agadez in northern Niger. The town itself is also the site of the dinosaur fossils of Niger. The guide, Moussa Idrissa, adds that the fossils are crowd-pullers at the museum, and that the country makes a lot of money just by having them on display. They attract tourists in large numbers, he emphasises.
Sani Sumanah, another guide at the museum, also says that the dinosaurs were found in the vicinity of Agadez, and that they are at least 100 million years old. Niger’s dinosaur fossils were discovered by Paul Sereno, a Paleontologist at the University of Chicago, USA. Nationalgeographic.com describes him as a ‘discoverer of Dinosaurs on five continents, and leader of dozens of expeditions.’ It states ‘In the early 1990s his expeditions shifted to the Sahara to unearth Africa’s lost world of Dinosaurs.
In Niger, Sereno’s teams have excavated more than 70 tons of dinosaur fossils from rocks dating from the cretaceous period. There are also Dinosaur foorprints which have been found on rocks, and these can be seen at the National Museum also. Niger seems to be rich in dinosaur remains and it is felt by some that before long, a few more may join the popular lot at the museum.