Apatosaurus
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Apatosaurus Conservation status: Fossil
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Apatosaurus (meaning deceptive lizard) was a sauropod dinosaur that lived in the Jurassic Period. It was formerly known as Brontosaurus. It grew as big as 21 meters long, 4.5 meters tall at the hip, and weighed up to 35 metric tons. It ate plants. The bones of Apatosaurus have been discovered in Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Utah in the United States.
When it was first discovered, scientists thought that Apatosaurus lived partly submerged in water, since it could not support its own weight on dry land. Now they think it lived on dry land, probably in herds.
There are three species of Apatosaurus:
- A. ajax was discovered by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877.
- A. excelsus (originally named Brontosaurus excelsus) was discovered by Marsh in 1879. Brontosaurus is actually an Apatosaurus skeleton with the head of a Camarasaurus.
- A. louisae was discovered by William Holland in 1915.
- Another dinosaur species discovered in 1994 was at first named A. yahnahpin but in 1998 it was renamed Eobrontosaurus yahnahpin.
Look up Apatosaurus in Wikispecies, a directory of species
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