Got locked out from posting diaries Wednesday due to a spur of the moment rant at 3:00 in the morning.
But no matter, here it is all the same!
Part six in an ongoing series of any and all things Mesozoic without fur (though sometimes feathers).
Past diaries can be found here--
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Pronounced Brak-ee-oh-sor-uhs.
Sometimes, nature goes out of its way to produce something really, really big.
Brachiosaurus was a sauropod (long neck, long tail, huge neck vertebrae) that lived in the Late Jurassic to (potentially) the Early Cretaceous period of both North America and Africa (roughly 150-130 million years ago). It was once thought to have been the largest terrestrial animal that ever lived--however, less complete but still reliable material has been found for creatures called Titanosaurs that, depending on one vertebrae described in particular, dwarf Brachiosaurus.
It reached over 86 feet from tail to neck, and weighed anywhere from 30-50 tons in adulthood (depending on its size).
But possibly most unique amongst the sauropods was its legs.
Most sauropods have either equally spaced legs or legs that are slightly more heavy in the back than in the front. Brachiosaurus on the other hand decided to monumentally lengthen its humerus, radius, and ulna ('arm bones') compared to its femur, tibula, and fibula ('leg bones') for a sort of 'I'm about to do a handstand, but won't due to the probability of dying if I do' look.
It also couldn't do this without falling on its face--
It's also possible that the sauropod in that movie couldn't either! But that's another story.
The vast majority of sauropod discoveries made are comprised of either the animal's vertebrae or its leg bones--the skull is almost never found. This is primarily due to the fact that it is extremely thin and pneumatic (full of air!) and therefore very fragile and unlikely to hold together over the eons.
However, though not a Brachiosaur, the title of king of the thin skulls belongs to Nigersaurus (a sauropod recently discovered by Paul Sereno in, you guessed it, Niger). One section of its skull (the jugal, or 'cheek bone') in particular is so thin that light can pass directly through it.
Due to the fact that flowering plants had not yet come into being within its existence, Brachiosaurus's main source of diet would have been the multitudes of conifer trees, ferns, and cycads that littered the Mesozoic landscape.
Stay tuned next week for another Jurassic animal!