Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus altithorax
Pronounced: Bra - key
- o - Saw - rus
Diet: Herbivore
(Plant-Eater)
Name Means: "high
chested arm reptile"
Length: 80 feet (25
m)
Height: 40 feet (12
m)
Weight: 60 tons
(54,500 kilos)
Time: Jurassic to
Cretaceous, 150 mya
Fossil remains for this Dinosaur have been found in U.S., Europe, Africa
Until recently Brachiosaurus was the
largest known dinosaur, and made famous by
the movie "Jurassic Park". It is very tall
(40 feet!) and very heavy - more than 12
elephants! Unlike most of the other
long-necked dinosaurs, Brachiosaurus was
specifically designed to reach high into
treetops to gather its meals. It had front
legs that were longer than its hind legs
which pointed its long neck upward. It had a
shorter tail than most other big long-necked
dinosaurs
It is possible that some specimens of Brachiosaurus
reached heights exceeding 50 feet and weighed as much as
80 tons; in fact, it may never have stopped growing as
long as it lived, which may have been over 100 years! It
had, like other typical sauropods, peg-like teeth in a
head that seemed very small for such a large creature.
Studies about how much these creatures needed to eat and
how such a small head could ingest enough food to fuel
such a large body have concluded that a full grown
Brachiosaurus would have needed to eat 440 pounds (200
kg) of food every day - if it was warm-blooded as many
scientists believe. Some scientists have stated that
these huge, small-headed creatures would have needed to
eat every waking moment in order to provide enough food
to keep such a large body alive. Brachiosaurus, like
other sauropods, seemed to have every adaptation needed
for continuous eating, including having nostrils on the
top of its head, so breathing would not interfere with
eating.
In order to facilitate the processing of food, which
it could not chew with its teeth, Brachiosaurus
swallowed stones that the dinosaur kept in its gizzard
similar to that found in a chicken. The tough plant
fibers would spend time in the gizzard stewing and being
ground up by the stones. It probably traveled in herds,
the sheer size of the adults protecting the young from
predators. This creature is known from two fairly
complete skeletons, one of which is on display in
Berlin, Germany and the other in Chicago, USA. |
