Introduction:
It is about time we talk about the one of the most popular sauropod dinosaur of all time, the Brachiosaurus!!! The name, Brachiosaurus, means Arm Lizard because of the long arms it had compared to the back legs. I probably don’t have to say much about Brachiosaurus because it is one of the most recognizable dinosaur. If someone says to imagine a long-necked dinosaur, 99% of the time, the image of the Brachiosaurus will come up and the reason for its’ popularity is simple, Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park featured this dinosaur as the first reveal of the movie dinosaur and also shown again for a human interaction scene with the protagonists and that is what made the Brachiosaurus stay in the minds of many because in the original novel, it was meant to be an Apatosaurus, like most cases because Apatosaurus was showcased more in the museums than the Brachiosaurus. It became an instant hit after the film appearance but how much do we actually know about this dinosaur other than that. Well then, let’s go deeper into the history of this dinosaur.
Discovery:
The species, Brachiosaurus altithorax, the only Brachiosaurus species, was discovered in 1900 in the valley of the Colorado River near Fruita, Colorado. It was found in the part of the Morrison Formation, a formation famous for finding a lot of Jurassic Period dinosaurs. It was discovered by the American paleontologist, Elmer Samuel Riggs and his crew from the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago.
Now here is the thing, Brachiosaurus is not based on a full skeleton, but rather, based on a very partial skeleton. It is very partial that the first Brachiosaurus is mainly based off some rib bones, back legs and front leg bones and later, some more scattered finds of neck, tail, feet and the skull which were found later and added to the species description. You might be wondering how did the paleontologists know how it looked like and this is where comparison comes to help.
Well, before Brachiosaurus altithorax became the only known species, there were even more Brachiosaurus species found from Tanzania and Portugal which are now reclassified as different genera but belongs in the same family, Brachiosauridae. The Brachiosauridae is named after yours truly, Brachiosaurus and many similar genera were found which were more complete and the basic silhouette lent itself well to create a complete image for it. I will also be making species profile for all the other Brachiosaurids. Well, now you know that the most images of Brachiosaurus are mainly inferred from other similar generas of Brachiosaurus.
Brachiosaurus altithorax is mainly found in Morrison Formation but it was also one of the more rarer Sauropod species found in that formation as most of the sauropod fossils were of Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Camarasaurus. It probably could have been due to its massive size and also, fossilization is not easy at all as it requires a lot of certain conditions to align for the fossilization to occur.
Which is why paleontology is an ever growing field of science because the work will never be done until the prehistoric nature is fully discovered. There might even be species which will never found and could have been destroyed due to natural causes or human intervention. We are lucky for what we have but we should always strive to learn more about the Earth’s past life and how incredible it was.
Biology:
Brachiosaurus was an immensely, huge dinosaur for the Jurassic Period. Even when it was discovered, it was considered to be the largest and tallest dinosaur of all time until the discovery of titanosaurs like Argentinosaurus and Dreadnoughtus and even more larger and longer sauropods but goes to show that dinosaurs really took over the world and evolved to immense sizes quite rapidly.
Brachiosaurids are also considered as ancestors of the Titanosaurs because during the Jurassic Period, most of the sauropods’ neck posture was more horizontal unlike the Brachiosaurids which were more vertical and later in the Cretaceous Period, that posture would become the norm for most sauropods. It has been estimated that it could grow up to 9 m (32 ft) tall and at least 22 m (70.4 ft) long and was one of the larger sauropods of Jurassic Period.
Brachiosaurus has been usually depicted with an S-shaped, long neck and very skinny looking before but recent reconstruction so that it would have been a massive sauropod, with thick, long and more straighter necks. The reason for thicker necks is because of the air sacs which would have helped in breathing as well as keeping the overall body weight lighter.
Recent estimates suggests that it would have weighed around 30 – 45 tons. The legs would have thick but the foot pads would have been softer to help minimize the damage in the elbows and knees from the immense weight but not stumpy like that of an elephant.
Many art from before gave sauropods elephant-like feet but the feet would have claws and a little splayed out but not like those of theropods. Let’s say a half-way point of a theropod and elephant feet. And surprisingly, the tail would have been short, like shorter than most Jurassic sauropods. This could have been an evolutionary experiment because titanosaurs would go back to have longer tail.
And the most important distinction of a Brachiosaurus, the crest-looking part on the head. This part is still a mystery because soft tissues are not preserved easily in fossil form and thus we cannot conclusively say why, it could have had small horns or maybe a huge nasal chamber with varied colors as a display feature for attracting mates and so many things. Paleontologists usually like to go with a more conservative description with a large nasal chamber rather than going too over the top with horns and bumpy scales.
Brachiosaurus would have lived alongside a lot of sauropods and the sauropod number would be through the roof because there are at least 6 kinds of sauropods, excluding Brachiosaurus, in the North American Jurassic like the Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Barosaurus, Haplocanthosaurus and Supersaurus. The vegetation would be in abundance with all kinds of trees and bushes with rivers running through.
There would not be any grass fields because grass did not evolve until the extinction of dinosaurs. And let’s not forget the predators, Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Torvosaurus, Saurophaganax and so many smaller ones as well along with other ornithiscian herbivores like the Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus, Gargoyleosaurus, Dryosaurus and many more.
Now it might seem like there is an over abundance of sauropods but nature always balances itself out because the lives of young, baby Brachiosaurus would have been very difficult as they would be the target of many carnivores and their main goals would be to escape the carnivores, not get killed by other herbivores like Stegosaurus and keep eating a lot so that they could grow faster.
A lot would not be so lucky and even after being a teenager, it would still be a little hard as now they would have to fight against the hunters but once they reached adulthood, there were no stopping them, not until they became old and weak. That would be a life of Brachiosaurus in short.
Media:
I did mention before how Brachiosaurus depicted in most media is actually a Giraffatitan, another genera of Brachiosauridae and you might be wondering then how do we know which one is which. It is super easy to identify, the head crest. Giraffatitan had a more taller crest than Brachiosaurus and Brachiosaurus’ one was much shorter. I will give you the list of where the ‘Brachiosaurus’ does appear and you will have to let me know down in the comments, how many of the Brachiosaurus depiction is actually of an actual Brachiosaurus.
- Jurassic Park
- Jurassic Park III
- Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom
- Jurassic World Dominion
- Jurassic World Evolution
- Jurassic World Evolution 2
- Jurassic Park Builder
- Jurassic World The Game
- Jurassic World Alive
- Dinotopia
- The Land Before Time
- Walking With Dinosaurs
- Disnye’s Dinosaur
- Ice Age 3
- Terra Nova
- Prehistoric Kingdom
Brachiosaurus has been, for a long time, a very popular dinosaur and I hope we can learn even more about Brachiosaurus in the future and I am thankful for you to read through this post. I also want to say that Brachiosaurus is my Mom’s favorite dinosaur. I generally find sauropods to be really cool and I just love their gigantism and how they were the largest dinosaurs of all time and to find that my Mom’s favorite dinosaur is a Brachiosaurus, well maybe it is a Giraffatitan like the most depictions, is like a cherry on top. I hope you also love Brachiosaurus like my Mom and I hope to see you again in other species profile posts!!!
Merchandise:
I cannot leave you absolutely empty-handed! Before you go, do check out the merch links I have found for Brachiosaurus related while most of them do like the Giraffatitan but that is besides the point. If you find anything that you fancy, please do buy from my links as it helps to keep this website up and running and thank you again for checking out and I hope to see you in next posts. I am wondering what should I post next…Giraffatitan…nah! That’s too obvious!!
