Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. Othniel Charles Marsh described and named the first-known species, Apatosaurus ajax, in 1877, and a second species, Apatosaurus louisae, was discovered and named by William H. Holland in 1916. Apatosaurus lived about 152 to 151 million years ago (mya), during the late Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian age, and are now known from fossils in the Morrison Formation of modern-day Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah in the United States. Apatosaurus had an average length of 21–23 m (69–75 ft), and an average mass of 16.4–22.4 t. A few specimens indicate a maximum length of 11–30% greater than average and a mass of approximately 33 t.

A picture published with the record for Apatosaurus.

AbstractionBlue · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ApatosaurinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda
Length
22.8 mWikidata
Mass
22.4 tonneWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 152.21 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 157.9 Mya to 143.1 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 67 of 67 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 67 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 3 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 3 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 3 occurrences153–153 Mya — about 3 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 3 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 3 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 3 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 3 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 3 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 3 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 3 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 3 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 3 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 3 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 3 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 3 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 3 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 3 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 3 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 3 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 3 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 3 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152.21 Mya149.2 Mya158.4 Mya142.6 Mya

67 occurrences of Apatosaurus on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

67 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Morrison — 39.65°N, 105.19°WMorrison — 40.44°N, 109.30°WMorrison — 36.21°N, 103.63°WMorrison — 38.45°N, 107.40°WMorrison — 41.88°N, 106.06°WMorrison — 41.91°N, 105.98°WMorrison — 39.24°N, 109.00°WMorrison — 44.65°N, 107.82°WMorrison — 38.55°N, 105.23°WMorrison — 38.58°N, 108.40°WMorrison — 36.90°N, 102.83°WMorrison — 36.93°N, 102.97°WMorrison — 41.97°N, 106.29°WMorrison — 38.54°N, 106.81°WMorrison — 44.47°N, 103.31°WMorrison — 44.53°N, 103.83°WMorrison — 42.15°N, 105.91°WMorrison — 42.04°N, 106.39°WMorrison — 44.09°N, 106.78°WMorrison — 42.18°N, 106.32°WMorrison — 38.25°N, 110.81°WMorrison — 43.62°N, 108.18°WMorrison — 44.54°N, 107.78°WMorrison — 36.10°N, 110.23°WMorrison — 38.85°N, 108.48°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 42.02°N, 106.05°WMorrison — 44.05°N, 107.46°WMorrison — 39.32°N, 110.69°WMorrison — 40.41°N, 109.22°WMorrison — 44.09°N, 106.87°WMorrison — 37.53°N, 103.68°WMorrison — 42.15°N, 105.91°WMorrison — 45.54°N, 110.62°WMorrison — 38.92°N, 109.94°WMorrison — 39.14°N, 109.02°WMorrison — 41.31°N, 105.71°WMorrison — 44.06°N, 106.72°WMorrison — 39.01°N, 111.02°WMorrison — 38.78°N, 109.72°WMorrison — 35.34°N, 107.81°WMorrison — 44.66°N, 107.85°WMorrison — 46.20°N, 111.41°WMorrison — 37.40°N, 108.92°W

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The named rock units Apatosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Apatosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Apatosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

174 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 62 sites for Apatosaurus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

33 references

Each of the 67 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 21 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Apatosaurus

Credit
AbstractionBlue
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Apatosaurus excelsus · AMNH:FARB:339

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

This entry was cached before the site began recording what Smithsonian Open Access did, so a search that failed cannot be told from one that found nothing.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itApatosaurinae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1877