Brontosaurus excelsus BRON-toh-SOR-us
"Thunder lizard"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Brontosaurus 22 m (72 ft) long
13 people holding hands
- Length
- 22 m (72 ft) — About 22 m long, ~17 tonnes — once considered the same as Apatosaurus, now its own genus again.
- Period
- Late Jurassic (156–146 Mya)
- Place
- North America · Western United States
- Food
- Herbivore — Low and mid-height plants — similar diet to Apatosaurus.
Brontosaurus is back. For a century it was lumped into Apatosaurus and considered an invalid name, but a 2015 study by Tschopp and colleagues looked at hundreds of bone details and found that Brontosaurus is different enough to count as its own genus again. The species we grew up calling Brontosaurus excelsus is once again Brontosaurus excelsus.
What we know
- Originally named in 1879 by O.C. Marsh, then lumped into Apatosaurus in 1903.
- Revived as a valid genus in 2015 after a detailed bone-by-bone study.
- Slightly more lightly built than Apatosaurus, with a longer, lower neck.
- Lived in the Morrison Formation alongside Allosaurus and Stegosaurus.
What we guess
- Whether all 'Brontosaurus' specimens really belong to one genus or are more diverse.
- How it differed in behavior or diet from Apatosaurus given how similar they look.
- Whether the 2015 split will hold up as more specimens are studied.