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Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus) browsing from tree tops in a sandy landscape

Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus used to be known as brontosaurus, following a labelling error on a very similar specimen. Subsequently renamed, Apatosaurus was one of the larger sauropod dinosaurs, and therefore one of the largest animals ever to have walked the Earth. Peg-like teeth effectively stripped leaves from trees, but were no use for chewing, so Apatosaurus probably swallowed stones to grind up its meals in the gizzard. Enormous size, herding behaviour and a whip-like tail would all have provided valuable defence against the meat-eaters of the time.

Scientific name: Apatosaurus

Rank: Genus

Common names:

  • Brontosaurus,
  • deceptive lizard

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Apatosaurus size

An illustration showing the enormous Apatosaurus's size relative to humans.

A comparison of the enormous Apatosaurus's size in relation to humans.

Behaviours

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Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

When they lived

Discover the other animals and plants that lived during the following geological time periods.

Jurassic period Jurassic period
The Jurassic began after the mass extinction event that ended the Triassic. Life, however, was quick to recover from this blow and the Jurassic eventually became host to the most diverse range of organisms that Earth had yet seen.

About

Chordata

Apatosaurus ( /əˌpætɵˈsɔrəs/), also known by the popular but scientifically redundant synonym Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived from about 154 to 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period (Kimmeridgian and early Tithonian ages). It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of 23 m (75 ft) and a mass of at least 23 metric tons (25 short tons). The composite term Apatosaurus comes from the Greek names apate (ἀπάτη)/apatelos (ἀπατηλός) meaning "deception"/"deceptive" and sauros (σαῦρος) meaning "lizard"; thus, "deceptive lizard". Othniel Charles Marsh gave it this name because he regarded the chevron bones as similar to those of some mosasaurs, members of a group of prehistoric marine lizards.

The cervical vertebrae were less elongated and more heavily constructed than those of Diplodocus and the bones of the leg were much stockier (despite being longer), implying a more robust animal. The tail was held above the ground during normal locomotion. Like most sauropods, Apatosaurus had only a single large claw on each forelimb, with the first three toes on the hind limb possessing claws. Fossils of these animals have been found in Nine Mile Quarry and Bone Cabin Quarry in Wyoming and at sites in Colorado, Oklahoma and Utah, present in stratigraphic zones 2-6.

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