Giraffatitan brancai

Giraffatitan is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic Period in what is now Lindi Region, Tanzania. Only one species is known, G. brancai, named in honor of German paleontologist Wilhelm von Branca, who was a driving force behind the expedition that discovered it in the Tendaguru Formation. Giraffatitan brancai was originally described by German paleontologist Werner Janensch as a species of the North American sauropod Brachiosaurus from the Morrison Formation, as Brachiosaurus brancai. Recent research shows that the differences between the type species of Brachiosaurus and the Tendaguru material are so large that the African material should be placed in a separate genus.

Giraffatitan brancai

Shadowgate from Novara, ITALY · CC BY 2.0 · 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
GiraffatitanPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda

Time the record covers

At least 5.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 143.1 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 42 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 42 of 42 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 42 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences161–161 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences161–160 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences160–159 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences159–159 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences159–158 Mya — about 0.2 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 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–151 Mya — about 2 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 2 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 2 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 3 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 3 occurrences148–147 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 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 3 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences154.8 Mya149.2 Mya162 Mya142.6 Mya

42 occurrences of Giraffatitan brancai 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

42 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

Tendaguru — 9.70°S, 39.23°ETendaguru — 9.69°S, 39.25°E

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

Giraffatitan brancai and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Giraffatitan brancai and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

44 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 42 sites for Giraffatitan brancai, 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

6 references

Each of the 42 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. 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 content2

Picture of Giraffatitan brancai

Credit
Shadowgate from Novara, ITALY
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itGiraffatitan through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Janensch 1914)