Recently, a team of researchers in Colorado discovered the preserved footprints of a herd of Apatosaurus. The tiniest trackmarks were left by hind but not front feet, conjuring up the image of 5- to pound Apatosaurus hatchlings skittering on their two hind legs to keep up with the thundering herd. If this was really the case, then it's likely that all sauropod babies and young juveniles , and not just those of Apatosaurus, ran bipedally, the better to elude hungry predators like the contemporary Allosaurus.
Like most sauropods, Apatosaurus possessed an extremely long, thin tail that acted as a counterweight to its equally long neck. To judge by the lack of characteristic trackmarks see previous slide that would have been left in the mud by a dragging tail, paleontologists believe Apatosaurus held its long tail off the ground, and it's even possible though far from proven that this sauropod "whipped" its tail at high speeds to intimidate or even inflict flesh wounds on its meat-eating antagonists.
Paleontologists are still debating the posture and physiology of sauropods like Apatosaurus: did this dinosaur hold its neck at its fullest possible height to eat from the high branches of trees which would have entailed its possessing a warm-blooded metabolism, in order to have the energy to pump all those gallons of blood 30 feet into the air , or did it hold its neck parallel to the ground, like the hose of a gigantic vacuum cleaner, feasting on low-lying shrubs and bushes?
The evidence is still inconclusive. Apatosaurus was discovered in the same year as Diplodocus , yet another gigantic sauropod of late Jurassic North America named by Othniel C. These two dinosaurs were closely related, but Apatosaurus was more heavily built, with stockier legs and differently shaped vertebrae.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that it was named first, Apatosaurus is today classified as a "diplodocoid" sauropod the other major category are the "brachiosaurid" sauropods, named after the contemporary Brachiosaurus and characterized, among other things, by their longer front than hind legs.
The long neck of Apatosaurus, combined with its unprecedented at the time it was discovered weight, flummoxed 19th-century naturalists. As was the case with Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus, early paleontologists tentatively proposed that Apatosaurus spent most of its time underwater , holding its neck out of the surface like a gigantic snorkel and perhaps looking a bit like the Loch Ness Monster.
It's still possible, though, that Apatosaurus mated in the water, the natural buoyancy of which would have kept males from crushing the females! In , Winsor McCay—best known for his comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland— premiered Gertie the Dinosaur , a short animated film featuring a realistically hand-drawn Brontosaurus.
Early animation entailed arduously painting individual "cels" by hand; computer animation didn't become widespread until the late 20th century. Since then, Apatosaurus usually referred to by its more popular name has been featured in countless TV shows and Hollywood movies, with the odd exception of the Jurassic Park franchise and its marked preference for Brachiosaurus. Many paleontologists still lament the demise of Brontosaurus, a name beloved to them since their childhoods. Robert Bakker , a maverick in the science community, has proposed that Othniel C.
Marsh's Brontosaurus merits genus status after all, and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Apatosaurus; Bakker has since created the genus Eobrontosaurus , which has yet to be widely accepted by his colleagues. However, a more recent study has concluded that Brontosaurus is sufficiently distinct from Apatosaurus to warrant a comeback; watch this space for further details! Actively scan device characteristics for identification.
Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. It can often be hard to distinguish between different genera, species, and individuals of sauropods.
A case in point is the long-necked Seismosaurus "earthquake lizard" , which some paleontologists believe should be classified as an unusually large species of Diplodocus, D. Wherever it winds up on the sauropod family tree, Seismosaurus was a true giant, measuring over feet from head to tail and weighing as much as tons—putting it in the same weight class as the largest titanosaurs of the ensuing Cretaceous period.
Given its enormous size, it's extremely unlikely that a healthy, full-grown, ton Diplodocus would be targeted by predators—even if, say, the contemporary, one-ton Allosaurus was smart enough to hunt in packs. Rather, the theropod dinosaurs of late Jurassic North America would have targeted the eggs, hatchlings and juveniles of this sauropod one imagines that very few newborn Diplodocus survived into adulthood , and would only have focused their attention on adults if they were sick or elderly, and thus more likely to lag behind a stampeding herd.
Paleontologists still haven't agreed on a definitive classification scheme for "brachiosaurid" sauropods i. However, pretty much everyone agrees that Apatosaurus the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus was a close relative of Diplodocus—both of these sauropods roamed western North America during the late Jurassic period—and the same may or may not apply to more obscure genera like Barosaurus and the colorfully named Suuwassea.
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Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Bob Strauss. Science Writer. Updated August 10, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Strauss, Bob. Sauropod Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles.
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