23 Facts About Brontosaurus

Brontosaurus is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs.

Brontosaurus had a long, thin neck and a small head adapted for a herbivorous lifestyle, a bulky, heavy torso, and a long, whip-like tail.

Marsh believed that Brontosaurus was a member of the Atlantosauridae, a clade of sauropod dinosaurs named by him in 1877 that comprised Atlantosaurus and Apatosaurus.

Year later in 1880, another partial postcranial Brontosaurus skeleton was collected in Como Bluff by Reed, including well preserved limb elements.

At the Yale Peabody Museum, the skeleton of Brontosaurus excelsus was mounted in 1931 with a skull based on the Marsh reconstruction of the Felch Quarry skull.

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Elmer Riggs, in the 1903 edition of Geological Series of the Field Columbian Museum, argued that Brontosaurus was not different enough from Apatosaurus to warrant its own genus, so he created the new combination Apatosaurus excelsus for it.

Nonetheless, before the mounting of the American Museum of Natural History specimen, Henry Fairfield Osborn chose to label the skeleton "Brontosaurus", though he was a strong opponent of Marsh and his taxa.

In 2015, an extensive study of diplodocid relationships by Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus, and Roger Benson concluded that Brontosaurus was indeed a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus.

Brontosaurus was a large, long-necked, quadrupedal animal with a long, whip-like tail, and forelimbs that were slightly shorter than its hindlimbs.

Skull of Brontosaurus has not been found, but was probably similar to the skull of the closely related Apatosaurus.

Brontosaurus had a single large claw on each forelimb, and the first three toes possessed claws on each foot.

Brontosaurus is a member of the family Diplodocidae, a clade of gigantic sauropod dinosaurs.

Brontosaurus is classified in the subfamily Apatosaurinae, which includes Apatosaurus and one or more possible unnamed genera.

Othniel Charles Marsh described Brontosaurus as being allied to Atlantosaurus, within the now defunct group Atlantosauridae.

Originally named by its discoverer Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, Brontosaurus had long been considered a junior synonym of Apatosaurus; its type species, Brontosaurus excelsus, was reclassified as A excelsus in 1903.

However, an extensive study published in 2015 by a joint British-Portuguese research team concluded that Brontosaurus was a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus.

Historically, sauropods like Brontosaurus were believed to be too massive to support their own weight on dry land, so theoretically they must have lived partly submerged in water, perhaps in swamps.

Diplodocids like Brontosaurus are often portrayed with their necks held high up in the air, allowing them to browse on tall trees.

Juvenile Brontosaurus material is known based on the type specimen of B parvus.

Myhrvold carried out a computer simulation of the tail, which in diplodocids like Brontosaurus was a very long, tapering structure resembling a bullwhip.

Older Brontosaurus remains have been identified from the middle Kimmeridgian, and are assigned to B parvus.

Brontosaurus has often been depicted in cinema, beginning with Winsor McCay's 1914 classic Gertie the Dinosaur, one of the first animated films.

The 1933 film King Kong featured a Brontosaurus chasing Carl Denham, Jack Driscoll and the terrified sailors on Skull Island.