Intro
Apatosaurus was a gigantic sauropod dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic period, between about 157 million and 146 million years ago, in the region that is today North America (i.e. the United States and Canada). It was a herbivore with a massive body supported by four legs, and with a long neck and tail.
Fact File
Length: 21 metres
Height: 9 metres
Weight: 30 tonnes
Diet: Herbivore
Prey
Apatosaurus was a herbivorous sauropod. It would have used it long neck to eat leaves from high trees. Another thing the neck enabled Apatosaurus to do was to eat a lot of food, yet stand still, by using it neck to sweep side-to-side through the trees.
Discovery
The name Apatosaurus means "deceptive lizard", however Apatosaurus also has another name, "Brontosaurus" (which means "thunder lizard"). The reason that this dinosaur has two names is because of how it was discovered. The great fossil hunter, Othniel C. Marsh discovered the first fossils of the animal in 1877 and 1879, but did not realize that he was looking at adult and juvenile examples of the same animal, but instead wrongly thought he had found specimens of two different animals - and hence used two different names to describe them. This became one of the biggest and most famous blunders in paleontological history. It was only later that it was realized that all these fossils were from the same animal, and hence the first chosen name, "Apatosaurus" is the official scientific name, although "Brontosaurus" is still in widespread popular usage.
Popular Culture
- In the film series 'The Land Before Time', the main character 'Littlefoot', is an Apatosaurus.
- The well-known larger-than-life Dinny the Dinosaur is an Apatosaurus.