#brontosaurus excelsus

[fundinofactoftheday]

Dinofact #119

For a long time the type species of Brontosaurus, B. excelsus, was considered a synonym of Apatosaurus, thus making Brontosaurus invalid as a genus. It is still disputed today, with some people saying that B. excelsus is not distinct enough from A. ajax, while others argue that the two are distinct enough to justify Brontosaurus' ''ressurection'' as a genus.

Source: Wikipedia

[mountmultimuses]

Dino Art.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Dakotaraptor steini

Allosaurus fragilis

Triceratops horridus

Brontosaurus excelsus

Stegosaurus armatus

Parasaurolophus walkeri

Velociraptor mongoliensis

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

Struthiomimus altus

Elasmosaurus platyurus

[mythicandco]

back by popular demand (one person asked to see them. hi @sylsoddsandends), the Dino Pals! this art is from the beginning of the school year.

[ognimdo2002]

Brontosaurus excelsus – Thundering Living Skyscraper

Brontosaurus is the extinct genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in present-day United States during the Late Jurassic period. The first and only type species of Brontosaurus is Brontosaurus excelsus, and it was described by American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: The Curious Case of Brontosaurus

Everyone has heard of Brontosaurus. It's one of the top five dinosaurs kids learn. However, do you know about the rocky past of this fan favorite? Brontosaurus was discovered in 1879 by Othniel Charles Marsh (or at the very least, his crew) during the height of the infamous Bone Wars. It was collected from Como Bluff, Wyoming and it was a nearly complete skeleton. All it was missing was its head (a typical, sauropod problem).

At this time, the Morrison Formation was at the center of the Bone Wars conflict so Marsh was feeling rushed and pressured to publish on this new find before his rival, Edward Drinker Cope, had the opportunity to publish something new first. Even though he hoped to recover a skull, Marsh opted to publish without.

Now, the Yale Peabody Museum couldn't display a headless skeleton so they decided to sculpt one. As I mentioned before, sauropod skulls are not easy to come by. The damn things are so small compared to the rest of the body and so fragile that the pop off and disarticulate. The only skulls that had been found with any substance was Camarasaurus and a few Brachiosaurus fragments. I mean, look at the size difference between Camarasaurus and Diplodocus skulls:

(The Diplodocus skull is significantly smaller. You can see it below and to the right of the Camarasaurus in the top photo).

So, all they had to really go off of was Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus so they made a composite of the two that ended up looking like this:

Horrifying, isn't it? I mean, those two sauropods aren't even closely related to Brontosaurus.

In 1903, Elmer Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was not different enough from Apatosaurus to warrant a different genus. A different species, sure, but not genus. Since Apatosaurus was named first, it had priority therefore Brontosaurus excelsus became Apatosaurus excelsus. However, the general public missed the memo so Brontosaurus stayed in common literature.

In 2015, an extensive study was done on the diplodocid branch (check out my Monday Musings post on sauropod phylogeny if unfamiliar with sauropod families) and they concluded that Brontosaurus was legit. Usually, names don't get revived to keep things from getting confusing but Brontosaurus survived nearly 100 years of existential crises so its popularity in the general populace allowed for a revival.

And that is the short history of how Brontosaurus existed then didn't exist and then existed again. Tune in tomorrow to learn about Brachiosaurus altithorax.

[pleistocene-pride]

Happy Fossil Day. Happy Fossil Day! Brontosaurus is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period some 156 to 146 million years ago. The first remains consisted of a fairly complete skeleton was recovered from Como Bluff Wyoming in 1879 by William Harlow Reed who named its Brontosaurus excelsus,  meaning "thunder lizard", from the Greek brontē meaning "thunder" and sauros meaning "lizard", and from the Latin excelsus, meaning "noble" or "high". Despite being one of the most complete sauropod skeletons known at the time, the brontosaurus type specimen along with another found in 1880 lacked skulls. In 1903 Elmer S. Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was so similar to Apatosaurus that it should become a synonym. However, when the first skeleton of Apatosaurus was mounted in the American Museum of Natural History in 1905, it bore the name Brontosaurus, in additional confusion because no skulls where known from these animals a faximilally was constructed based off of other sauropod skull remains now know to be Camarasaurus and brachiosaurs which gave the mount a truly bizarre head. This one mounted skeleton is the reason why so much controversy would exist for this dinosaur over the next hundred years. It was not until a 1975 study by John Stanton McIntosh and David Berman re-describing the skull and jaws of Apatosaurus and Diplodocus was published that things would really get moving for more accurate reconstructions. In 1995 the original Brontosaurus mount from 1905 finally got a skull revision to be like that of Apatosaurus, and was also now named as Apatosaurus excelsus. It took the best part of a century to reveal the true shape and form of Apatosaurus, and for most of this time the majority of paleontologists agreed with the opinion of Elmer S, Riggs from 1903 that Brontosaurus should be a synonym to Apatosaurus. One notable exception however was Robert T. Bakker, who in 1998 argued that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were distinct. Bakker would be proven right in 2015 when an extremely in-depth sauropod study conducted by Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus and Roger Benson found that the Brontosaurus type species B. excelsus was infact a valid genus. Reaching 62 to 72 (19 -22m) in length and 30,000 to 38,000 (13,600 -17,250kgs) in weight, brontosaurus was large, long-necked, and quadrupedal with a long tail terminating in a whip-like structure. The cervical vertebrae are notably extremely robust and heavily-built, in contrast to its lightly built relatives Diplodocus and Barosaurus. The forelimbs were short and stout whereas the hindlimbs were elongated and thick, all signs that brontosaurs was remarkably strong and muscular. Brontosaurus would have likely lived in loose herds  acting as a nonselective browser feeding upon ferns, cycads, ginkgos, and horsetails, as it coexisted with with a menagerie of other morrison taxa such as the Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Dryosaurus, Camptosaurus, Allosaurus, Torvosaurus, and Ceratosaurus.

Art Used in this video belongs to the following creators

Brontosaurus excelsus: Paleoguy https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-excelsus-526754288 https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-780543420 https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-Allosaurus-570575957

Brontosaurus is Back: tuomaskoivurinne https://www.deviantart.com/tuomaskoivurinne/art/Brontosaurus-is-back-526656913

Brontosaurus through the ages: Nix Draws Stuff https://nixillustration.com/tag/brontosaurus/

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

ten options, people. before you say "where is", remember, ten options.

[deepdreamnights]

Down in the Cyberpunk District

She'll be back at Yamakora-Smithson Accounting tomorrow, but for tonight, she's out to ride.

Prompt: a female vintage retro-robot, tin robot, punk aesthetic, shiny pantyhose, character design by akiman and john byrne, from Street Fighter Alpha 3, full body, character design on white background, promotional art, 1998, flirty pose, whiplash curves, curvy, leggy, bulbous, in the style of 1 9 9 0 s fighting game art:: a dinosaur anthro wearing work clothes standing on the corner of a dinosaur city. Solarpunk sci-if scene. charles r knight and syd mead:: an anthropomorphic [Brontosaurus excelsus], wearing clothes, brontosaurus-anthro, heavyset, thick limbs,:: dita von teese dressed as a metermaid, character design by akiman and don bluth for street fighter alpha 3, 1998, line art with flat anime cel shading, in the style of 1 9 9 0 s fighting games:: an instagram photo of an influencer with long straight brown hair, thick eyebrows and soft glam makeup wearing silver choker necklace, she is posing for the camera in her home, she has dark tan skin:: ,artwork by timothy mattihan, in the style of digital and glitchy, violet and gold, faith-inspired art, burne-jones, fauvist animator, northern china's terrain, mosaic pop art

This is a 'prompt smash' experiment, combining random (mostly) machine-generated prompts into a single prompt with multiple sub-prompts. Midjourney blends concepts in these situations, making vivid but essentially random results.

[dromaeosaurid]

Brontosaurus excelsus skeletal restoration from A Guide to the Fossil Reptiles and Fishes in the Department of Geology and Paleontology in the British Museum (Natural History), 1896.

[degenerate-perturbation]

@hellenicheart3610

ackshually 🤓 Brontosaurus excelsus has been recognised as a real dinosaur again! It's no longer a species of Apatosaurus.

Holy shit are you serious

Mom holy fuck they brought back brontosaurus. This rules so hard

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

ST Season 2 Wardrobe Analysis

Lucas, Max, & Dustin

Hello! I never talked about Lucas and Dustin in season 1, so I'll probably go back and do it at some point, but for now, I'm keeping my season 2 momentum. What we should note about season 1 heading in is that Dustin wears graphic tees and sweatshirts all the time. He also wore the same hat all season, which is also the same hat he wears for all of season 2.

I've talked a lot about characters having a specific color associated with them (Will, Mike, Nancy, Steve, and El all do) but Max, Lucas, and Dustin don't have this.

EPISODE 1

Dustin's graphic tees fascinate me because I feel like there's a hidden message in every one and I'm not smart enough to figure them all out. Here, in his first scene of season 2, he's wearing the periodic table. Dustin loves science. This isn't news to us. But this may or may not hint at the relevance science will play in his storyline this season.

Lucas wears a lot of shirts like this one with a white v-neck and rings on the sleeves. These shirts are a staple to his wardrobe, basics with a sporty accent.

Max is generally associated with bright colors. I know some people interpret this as rainbow imagery and read it as queercoding. Personally, I feel like Max's bright colors represent California. They mark her as an outsider. We do see lots of bright color in season 4 when we actually GO to California, and if you've watched the GQ interview with Amy Parris (costume designer), you'll know they established separate color palettes for their various locations.

Different seasons, different strokes (in both senses of the word). Season 2 and season 4 have different vibes, but also season 2 takes place in the fall while season 4 takes place in the spring. So the Hawkins colors above are bolder than what we see most characters wearing in season 2, but just like this, Max's wardrobe reflects a different color palette than the rest of the cast.

I actually have so much to say about this California color palette thing, so I'll need to cut myself off, but just think about the fact that Will was bullied from a young age for being visibly queer and in the original draft, Joyce mentions that his clothes are too colorful. Then in season 4, we see a girl flirting with him while he is wearing a bright red striped t-shirt. In California, his queerness is NOT visible. The brightness in Max's wardrobe reflects this same culture and now that she's in Hawkins, she is (like Will) standing out. And this is something that's never commented on within the show, but in real life, I can imagine that looking like Max (a tomboy) in Hawkins, she probably WOULD be pegged as a lesbian, despite not being one. But that was probably a bit much to work into a heterosexual love triangle, so it's understandable they didn't go there.

Regardless, the brightness signifies difference and standing out for both Max and Will in Hawkins and both Max and Will have relationships with California in which they would have LOOKED like they belonged, but did not necessarily feel like they did.

Dustin's dinosaur hoodie says "Brontosaurus/Thunder Lizard/The Science Museum of Minnesota." "Thunder lizard" is the loose translation of Brontosaurus excelsus, meaning that this hoodie specifically calls out species identification. Dustin first hears D'art in his trash can this same night. A couple episodes later, he attempts to classify and then name his species.

Also, "Thunder Lizard" makes me think "How do you know if it's not just a lizard?" This sweatshirt is a big nod to D'art, therefore causing my insanity in trying to uncover the meaning of all of his shirts.

I neglected to point out the similarities between Lucas's and Will's outfits in my Will/Mike post, but their outfits are stylistically extremely similar. They're in matching silhouettes, dark wash jeans, similar colors. It's quite obvious after episode 1 that Will is going to be a huge focal point for season 2, and there are a few cues that tell us that if Will is stepping into the spotlight, Lucas is doing it too.

EPISODE 2

I already talked about the Ghostbusters costumes in my Mike/Will post, so get the full scoop there! But I want to talk about the two Venkmans thing for a sec.

Lucas's refusal to be Winston purely because he's black, choosing rather to be Venkman is a big cue that Lucas is determined to no longer be a side character. Mike was established in season 1 as the Main member of the party. So the fact that Mike is the other Venkman tells us that he isn't the sole Main Character anymore. This is another one of those cues I mentioned before (yes, the two Venkmans thing has a variety of other meanings, but I'm not going to get into all those).

Max's tee is a soft yellow in contrast to most of the yellow we've seen from characters like Will, Mike, or Dustin. Her jeans are also a lighter wash than most of the denim we see in Hawkins. She wears either the same jeans or very similar jeans all season, so even when she's wearing a darker piece like this jacket, she still has brightness from all angles despite her tee being covered. Her sneakers are also a bright grass green, which does not match any of the colors in her outfit. This is something that happens often with Max's outfits. Her accessories don't match but rather add yet another bright color to her look.

EPISODES 3-4

This is another one of those shirts I mentioned at the start for Lucas. Something I find interesting here is that Lucas and Mike's outfits tell a cohesive story. Cover up Dustin and Max and we have Lucas's belt going with Mike's pants and the brown in his sweater, Lucas's pants matching Mike's sweater. Dustin fits less so.

Okay, listen. Maybe I just WANT Dustin's tees to be prophetic and they're not, but the brontosaurus one really was. This one has no text, just a green print of a hot air balloon. I'm creative. I can think of plenty of ways this could go and they all feel wrong to me, but I'm gonna spitball for a second:

Dustin is under the impression that D'art is his great discovery and he has big dreams of getting to classify D'art as his own species when he shows up in this shirt; his head is in the clouds (eh? eh?)

D'art is in his hat right now, so D'art's the one up high in an enclosed space.

Hot air -> freeing Will from the Mindflayer

But here's the one I'm going with if we're using the tees to foreshadow events of upcoming episodes: Dustin beginning to drift away from the party. As I mentioned before, Mike and Lucas match pretty well here. Mike, Will, and Lucas were all in the same colors in the episode before while Dustin was in purple. In episode 1, his bright yellow tee stood out against the others. He, like Max, doesn't really fit the color scheme. And he is about to embark on his two-season-long journey of feeling left out of the party.

Meanwhile Max is decked out in bright colors and she too feels left out or left behind. Mike is absolutely determined to keep her from party participation, her outsider colors not only applying to the school or the town at large but to the party as well.

Max's hoodie is once again this soft yellow and she's paired it with a blue ringer tee underneath. The color combo is very beachy and the sweatshirt has sailboat details on both the front and back (there weren't any particularly good angles to snap this from, sorry).

EPISODE 4

Okay, I'm sorry, but is this an owl? I have no idea. Pretty sure it's a bird with an eyepatch, though. The tee says "Pennville Pirates" which I'm fairly certain is not a real thing. I wasted too much time on a google hunt trying to find out. Pennville is a real town in Indiana, very possibly where Dustin could have moved to Hawkins from, but as for the pirates...P sure they don't exist.

I've thought a lot about why pirates? It's not like Dustin goes on a thieving rampage. The closest he gets to pirate behavior is his dishonesty by hiding D'art and his Attack on D'art in the cellar. But at the end of the day, I think the Pennville part is what really stands out. The fact that Dustin joined the party last was mentioned briefly in season 1 when he mentions to Mike that Lucas is his best friend. He clearly already has insecurities about being less a part of the party than the others and this only grows in seasons 2 and 3, though we never directly address the fact that he was last again. This tee therefore feels like a subtle reminder.

Lucas wore this jacket in episode 2 and he wears it again later. It's clearly a staple item of his wardrobe. He also wore a similar jacket multiple times in season 1:

Lucas is someone who likes a fairly simplistic wardrobe, owning a lot of similar items in various colors (Max does this too only in brighter colors). So when he's wearing these staple pieces, this is something I associate with Lucas being himself. I'll come back to this. The striped sweater has a little more color and character than we usually see on Lucas, potentially a hint at Max's influence.

Max is back in the jacket she wore in episode 1. And she may or may not be jean-repeating as well (they all look the same to me, I'm so sorry). She is an outfit repeater. I talked about Jonathan's outfit-repeating being a sign of his economic status and we know from season 4 that Max's mother has low-income, even after she takes on multiple jobs. But what she has now, financially, we can't really be sure. If the money is all coming from the Hargrove side of the family and Max's stepfather is a violent, controlling piece of fuckass garbage-fire trash, it's completely possible that Max doesn't see much of this money. However, she does appear to have a much more expansive wardrobe than Jonathan. And back to Lucas (and others) wearing the same jackets often, jacket repeating in particular is not necessarily a sign of how much money someone has.

However, a lot of Max's outfits have not seemed quite appropriate for the Hawkins weather. It doesn't look like she's gotten new clothes since the move. Again, this could be a consequence of her not getting much spending money or it could be a personal preference. But we do see her taping up her skateboard (presumably after Billy broke it off screen) later, so it seems likely that she is afraid to ask for things.

EPISODE 5

I couldn't decide if I should include it or not, but I actually do think this "outfit" poses some questions. Like, why does he own all of this stuff? He's clearly not a sports guy. So are these his belongings? Or were they his dad's? We don't know anything about Dustin's father. We don't know why he's out of the picture. We don't know if he's alive or dead; if Dustin's relationship with him was good or bad; if Dustin knew him at all/if he was EVER in the picture for Dustin or if his mother has always raised him alone.

All we know is that someone in this household at one point in time played hockey. Whether seriously or unseriously, poorly or well. Maybe Dustin's mother tried to get him into sports once and it didn't work out. Or maybe this stuff belonged to a father they don't talk about, but whose belongings are still around. But he grabs it from a very accessible location in an indoor closet (though we don't know if he's already put it there ahead of time for easy access). So while I can't draw any conclusions from this getup, I think its existence is curious.

This jacket is very like those tees he likes to wear with the stripe accents. It's also similar to the types of jackets Max often wears, but his jacket is more reflective of a letterman jacket, plus he's paired it with khaki pants. These details give Lucas's outfit a sort of sporty prep look while Max's style is skate sporty. Add in the plaid button-down and I'm actually just confused.

This is kind of a blend of different vibes we've seen from Lucas (i.e. his first outfit/third outfit being on the sporty prep side and his second/fourth outfits being on the smalltown fall vibes side. I'm not a fan. And Lucas is torn here, trying to figure out how to be honest with Max and also respectful of his friends. Maybe this outfit wasn't intended to be as ugly as I personally find it, but it feels like a visual representation of this internal struggle. The jacket leaning towards Max, the shirt leaning towards the party.

And while Lucas is sporting my least favorite of his looks for the season, Max is in my personal fave. She's in that soft, sunny yellow again and stripes, of course, plus a cozy grey sweatshirt. I don't have much to say about it other than that this is the warmest, most fall-colored of her outfits so far, potentially signaling her growing attachment to Hawkins.

EPISODES 6-9

How do we know shit's about to go down? Lucas has a bandana on.

This outfit feels much more comfortable than the last one. He's got his sneaks and his stripey tee and this jacket we've seen him in multiple times. He looks natural. And though I said that bandana thing like a joke, when Lucas puts on his bandanas, generally, we DO know that something dramatic is about to happen. We've been given a couple shots of him putting them on as a very intentional step in the preparations, for example, before he goes to spy on the lab in season 1. Lucas putting on a bandana isn't just a signal to the audience that shit's getting real, but it's something he does intentionally to prepare himself for conflict. I imagine this is a method of hyping himself up, boosting confidence, creating a visual for himself that he associates with bravery and triumph, likely a consequence of movies he's seen.

Max is in a striped tee and sporty-striped jacket again. Sorry for that second pic, but I wanted to get her jeans and shoes in the shot. Her shoes are red and blue and don't match, like at all. But Max is not a fashion girly and their vibrant color still fits her vibe. She and Lucas are both wearing orange striped tees as they grow closer to one another.

Similarly, Dustin is also wearing orange as he and Lucas make up. What is utterly bizarre to me is that the graphic tee Dustin spends the most time in (episodes 5-9), we can't see. His hoodie is zipped in all four episodes. The most I was able to read off it is "Race Yourself." The illustration is of a man on the moon, so this is presumably related to the Space Race, but the entire wording is never revealed. The message we are left with is "race yourself." Why. I don't actually have the answer to that. Try as I might, I am just not that smart.

Our girl wore pants to this dance (queen). And I don't think I'll ever be over the fact that her mom puts ONE barrette in her hair and says "It'll be worth it!" This outfit is low-key a mess, in my humble opinion, but that actually gives it some charm. The sweater has yellow cuffs, blue shoulders, a red waistband, and multi-colored stripes, and then she wore it with coral pants and that ONE barrette plus a watch in yet another shade of yellow. It's so colorful and it just screams Max, but it is not formal in the slightest. And this is an incredible contrast to pretty much all of the boys (and El) who all go out of their way to Dress to Impress.

ESPECIALLY Dustin. Dustin's outfit is actually my favorite out of the whole party's Snow Ball looks, but the effort he put into his hair shows how much he is trying to emulate Steve, a known womanizer, rather than being himself. His friends make fun of it, but god bless Scott Clarke for telling Dustin he looks snazzy. Dustin told Lucas he saw the connection (the "electricity") between him and Max, so he isn't trying to impress Max here, but he spends the dance hyper-focused on girls to the point that he ends up crying alone. Another contrast to note here is Will, who had no desire to impress any girls and yet got asked to dance by one calling him "Zombie Boy" which (first of all, rude) shows that she asked him to dance because he was being himself. Versus Dustin putting on an impression of a knock-off Steve Harrington, and getting laughed at.

This is another instance of Lucas and Mike's outfits looking kind of similar. They're both in grey and stripes with similar silhouettes with their jackets (open) and button-downs, going back to the two Venkmans thing with these boys both being leading lads/love interests. Lucas's shirt is slightly unbuttoned with no tie or bow-tie. His look is the most casual of all the boys, which fits with Max and the fact that after getting over the fear of trying to ask her to dance, he relaxes and these two manage to connect.

Other Season 2 Wardrobe Analyses: Mike & Will El & Hopper Nancy, Jonathan, & Steve

[paulgadzikowski]

I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that the taxon Brontosaurus excelsus has been resurrected, as a result of re-examination of the available paeleontological material, and a backing-away from smooshing together taxa based on fragmentary specimens. In fact, there are now two new species in genus Brontosaurus!

https://svpow.com/2015/04/07/welcome-back-brontosaurus-and-other-first-thoughts-on-tschopp-et-al-2015/

Re my tags here

Thanks for letting me know!

[paleobird]

"Oh, that's Brontosaurus excelsus!" Ava announced as she scampered up to the skeleton that Milla was staring at. Leave it to the harpy to find a guest in need far too quickly for her own good. "Definitely the most impressive skeleton we have here!"

"Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear! I'm Ava, I work here--do you need help with anything in particular, miss?"

Her soft little claws clicked upon the marbled floor of the museum floor. Her eyes gazing up at the massive skeleton of some great beast that rose before her. Her soft green eyes gazing across the creature as her hands fell to her sides. She'd fought mecha that size of course but it always made her take pause and wonder about creatures of that size that were living once. This might not have been her world of course but things like this existed on Avalice to. Still this world seemed to have its own charms.

" Hmm... can't quite read this--- wonder what language this is... aww i wanna know what this ones called... "

@paleobird

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

HAPPY NEW YEAR and some MONDAY MUSINGS

Hope you all had a fun and safe New Year's Eve! This month we will be talking about my favorite rock formation: the Morrison and today we will specifically be discussing the sauropods. The Morrison Formation is probably best known for the many sauropods found in it but are there too many? We don't really have an analogue today to compare to. The closest is the African savanna and but the megafauna there is very different from each other.

Let's look at a list of the sauropods found in the Morrison Formation:

Haplocanthosaurus (possibly 2 species)

Maraapunisaurus (now lost)

Dyslocosaurus

Smitanosaurus

Suuwassea

Amphicoelias

Apatosaurus (3 species)

Atlantosaurus (dubious)

Brontosaurus (3 species)

Barosaurus (2 species)

Diplodocus (3 species)

Seismosaurus (considered a species of Diplodocus by some)

Galeamopus (2 species)

Kaatedocus

Supersaurus

Brachiosaurus

Camarasaurus (5 species)

Dystrophaeus

That's 32 different sauropods. Imagine 32 different elephant species/genus' living all together on the African savanna. That's a lot for one environment but we're gonna dive in and see if this really is too much.

The Morrison Formation covers an area of 1.5 million square kilometers (600,000 square miles)

and spans over 10 million years.

That changes things. Now, let's start seeing where everything falls. First, we're going to remove sauropods that are dubious, unknown, or lost. Basically, ones that probably don't exist or can't be proven to exist. That removes 6 of them.

Then we look at where each of them was found. Outcrops of Morrison with dinosaur fossils have been found in 7 different states: South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

South Dakota has one sauropod: Barosaurus lentus. Okay, that's not too bad.

New Mexico also only has one sauropod as well, Seismosaurus hallorum. Now, some paleontologists believe it's a species of Diplodocus but that's not important for this post.

(Fun fact, this model is in the Montana Dinosaur Center where I worked last summer and I totally got to sleep under it. I know, I'm a nerd).

Speaking of Montana, it has two sauropods, Suuwassea

and Camarasaurus grandis.

Again, not too bad numbers wise. Oklahoma also has two sauropods: Barosaurus lentus and Camarasaurus supremus.

Then we have Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Utah has 8 sauropods: Apataosaurus louisae, Brontosaurus parvus, Barosaurus lentus, Diplodocus hallorum, Camarasaurus annae, Camarasaurus lentus, and Dystrophaeus.

Colorado has 12 sauropods: Haplocanthosaurus, Smitanosaurus, Amphicoelias, Apatosaurus ajax, Apataosaurus louisae, Galeamopus pabsti, Supersaurus, Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus grandis, Camarasaurus lewisi, and Camarasaurus supremus.

FInally, Wyoming has 14 sauropods: Haplocanthosaurus, Dyslocosaurus, Brontosaurus excelsus, Brontosaurus parvus, Brontosaurus yahrahpin, Diplodocus carnegii, Diplodocus hallorum, Galeamopus hayi, Galeamopus pabsti, Kaatedocus, Supersaurus, and Camarasaurus lentus.

Now, those numbers are little less believable. Let's take these three states and break them down more. Time. Each of these states has multiple members (layers I will discuss in another post later) that represent different stages in time during the Late Jurassic Period.

We will specifically be looking at the Tidwell, Salt Wash and Brushy Basin Members. Some of these can be broken down even more.

Utah: Dystrophaeus is the oldest sauropod, found in the Tidwell Member.

Diplodocus hallorum is found in the Salt Wash Member and the lowest Brushy Basin Member.

Brontosaurus parvus is also found in the Salt Wash Member while Camarasaurus lentus is found only in the lower Brushy Basin.

Finally, in the upper Brushy Basin we have Barosaurus and Apatasaurus louisae.

So that means one lived at the beginning of the Late Jurassic, two lived in the lower middle, two lived in upper middle, and two lived in the latest Jurassic. Again, not bad.

Let's do the same for Colorado. Camarasaurus lewisi was in the Tidwell Member (probably), Camarasaurus grandis and Brachiosaurus are found in the Salt Wash Member ( though Brachiosaurus can also be found in Brushy Basin) and the other eight are found in the Brushy Basin (Camarasaurus supremus and Supersaurus are only found at the very end).

That means one was alive in the early late Jurassic, two in the early middle Late Jurassic, nine in the Brushy Basin and two at the latest Jurassic. Possibly a bit but still better than 32.

Then there's Wyoming. No Tidwell there, but four are found in the Salt Wash Member (Brontosaurus parvus and yahrahpin, Diplodocus hallorum, and Kaatedocus), one appears only in the lower Brushy Basin (D. hallorum), one only appears in the upper Brushy Basin (Supersaurus) and the other 6 are found in the Brushy Basin Member (though one might actually be lower Cretaceous. Cedar Mountain Formation looks way too similar to Morrison for our sanity). Again, smaller numbers are better.

The other thing to keep in mind with numbers: we hardly find sauropods in great numbers. The exceptions like Dinosaur National Monument show a catastrophic burial event and it's highly unlikely that all those dinosaurs died together at the same time.

But it's not just numbers. What about the environment? There is this terrible misconception that the Morrison was this semi-arid wasteland savanna but that is only true in one area: on the Colorado Plateau. It's due to the Plateau's popularity with geologists and paleontologists, it is a well-studied area. Most of the Morrison was lush, wet forests. At the site I work at we have tons of petrified wood and cycads in the entire layer.

Lake Too'dichi' was a saline lake just like the Great Salt Lake (about the same size too) and yes, it was an inhospitible place for animals just like the Great Salt Lake but guess what? NONE OF OUR SITES ARE NEAR THE LAKE. Imagine that. No dinosaurs near the big salty lake. However, near the receding Sundance Sea? In the big green forests? Yeah, crap loads of dinosaurs found there and each one filling a different niche.

So, the reality is, no. There are not too many sauropods in the Morrison Formation. They were prolific and lived for a very long time co-existing and evolving side by side.

Whew...that was a long post. Hope you learned something new!

[saritawolff]

Brontosaurus excelsus remains one of the most famous dinosaurs and, even with its somewhat controversial background, finally received validity in 2015 😉

[dwollsadventures]

Among halflings, Camptosaurus is the most culturally important animal species. To those abroad in Khorvaire and the ecosystem of Talenta itself, sauropods are the pillar which all other species wrap themselves around. No other creature is more deserving of the title "movers and shakers". Multi-species "herds" of sauropods move across the region in circular patterns chasing trees that grow up, threatening to turn to plains into forests. Not exactly herds, they are loose bands of animals that maintain their distance from different species, but are close enough to warrant the confusion. Their actions shape the landscape, destroying old vegetation, removing environmental barriers, and even diverting the flow of waterways. Halflings treat them with a sort of fearful reverence, such as peasants might their liege lord. They respect them, but under no circumstances want to earn their attention, lest that turn to wrath.

Brontosaurus is not the largest of these lords, but certainly the mightiest. Like Apatosaurus, who are sometimes believed to be capable of producing hybrids with Brontosaurus, they are solitary beasts that provide protection for the (relatively) gracile Diplodocus and Camarasaurus. These beasts are slow and unwieldy and capable of immense feats of strength. The largest carnivores consider an adult Brontosaurus to be not worth the effort unless it is guaranteed to not put up a fight. Their skin is thicker than most armor. Their cordons of muscles sitting beneath that skin are capable not only of supporting the immense body, but also of tearing down trees and removing boulders from the earth with kicks. Most feared of all is their tail, which, along with their ground-shaking presence, earns the name "thunder". Caravans traveling along the plains have been smashed by warning blows from those whips.

Brontosaurus are high-browsers. Their great weight means they are incapable of rearing onto their hind legs like Diplodocus, but the positioning of their neck is able to compensate for this. Juveniles are left alone after hatching, and must defend themselves to adulthood. So many are killed during infancy that adult populations are kept in check. While close enough to create hybrids, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus meet only in passing. Brontosaurus is found associated with herds of Diplodocus, while Apatosaurus is a lonelier creature, attaching itself to no one species in particular. They are often pushed to the outskirts of the vast herds, near the following train of Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus. Archaeological evidence shows a previous culture of sedentary halflings would use sauropod bones, including Brontosaurus, as the outer walls of their homes, holding up large leather tents.

--

Second to last dinosaur! And also the last of these Talenta excerpts, for now. The lightning tail is inspired by a fantastic drawing by connorricks which occupies a space in my mind constantly. Schist and Mudbath are my own color schemes from the old D&D days. Both are drab, but I think they're probably the most appropriate for the elephantine Brontosaurus. Brawl is taken from Mark Witton's painting of the famous "Brontosmash". No neck spikes though.