Was there a dinosaur called a brontosaurus?
Good question and a tricky one to answer! Yes, there was a
brontosaurus, but only for a short while because there was a
bit of a muddle! The confusion arose in 1874 after a
scientist, O.C. Marsh, unearthed some fossils in Wyoming, US,
and believed that he had discovered a new genus. Later,
evidence proved that the fossils were those of a dinosaur
already discovered and named, the Apatosaurus. In 1974 the
name Brontosaurus was formally discarded.
The Apatosaurus was one of the largest land animals of all
time, found in Late Jurassic deposits of North America and
Europe (163 to 144 million years ago). Apatosaurus weighed as
much as 30 tons and was as much as 21 m (70 feet) long,
including its long neck and tail. It had four massive and
pillar like legs.
The size, shape, and features of the Apatosaurus head were
disputed for more than a century after its remains were first
uncovered. The information was clouded in part by incomplete
fossil finds and by a suspected mix-up of fossils during
shipment from an excavation site. The head was represented in
models as a massive, snub-nosed skull with spoon-like teeth
until 1978, when scientists rejected that representation in
favour of a slender, elongated skull containing long, peg-like
teeth.
Much discussion has centred on whether Apatosaurus and
related forms were able to support their great bulk on the
land or whether they were forced to adopt aquatic habits. It
now seems likely that Apatosaurus was primarily a land animal.
It had no skeletal features indicative of an aquatic
environment, and experiments suggest that its bones could
easily have supported its great weight. Even the massive
Brachiosaurus, which weighed about 80 tons, was probably more
often on land than in the water.