Apatosaurus Facts! A Dinosaur Facts video about the enormous Apatosaurus, also known as Brontosaurus

Learn dinosaur facts about Apatosaurus, the enormous herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous period.

Learn dinosaur facts: Apatosaurus Facts & Info

Apatosaurus, belonging to the sauropod dinosaur family, lived during the Late Jurassic and early Cretaceous period. It is one of the largest animals that have ever walked the earth.

For a long time Apatosaurus also went under the name of Brontosaurus, due to confusions when it was first discovered. But the technically correct name Apatosaurus is now the one being used.

Apatosaurus was a huge, long-necked dinosaur. It had four massive, pillar-like legs and a long tail to counter-balance its body. It measured up to 70 feet, including neck and tail. Which is longer than than two school buses. And it weighed more than 30 tons, which is more than five fully grown elephants.

The giant Apatosaurus lived in what is now called North America. Other dinosaurs that lived in the same area - and at the same time - were: Diplodocus, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus.

Apatosaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur, a so called herbivore. To provide its huge body with enough food it had to eat an enormous amount of plants every day. In an arrangement similar to a garden rake, the Apatosaurus jaws were lined with pencil-like teeth. These were useful for stripping and gathering vegetation.

To be able to eat fast the Apatosaurus didn’t chew, instead it had stomach stones called gastroliths that would grind the vegetation in the stomach.

Apatosaurus and some of the other large sauropods needed to have large, powerful hearts and very high blood pressure in order to pump blood up the long neck to the head and brain. To reduce the body weight it had vertebrae riddled with holes. These air-filled, or pneumatic, bones weighed only about 35% as much as solid ones.

It is thought that Sauropods did not take care of their eggs. Eggs have been found in linear patterns indicating that they were laid as the animal was walking.

With a very small brain, the Apatosaurus was probably not an intelligent dinosaur.At about 10 years of age, the Apatosaurus became fully grown. It could then reach ages of over 100 years.

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