Facts about Brachiosaurus Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the largest known species that existed on Earth. The renowned movie director, Steven Spielberg, has captured our imagination of dinosaurs, in the movie Jurassic Park. These mysterious animals have been an area of major research for the paleontologists.

A 'dinosaur' is a term that was coined by 'Sir Richard Owen' in 1842 and is derived from the Greek words 'deinos' and 'saurus'. ' Deinos' means something wondrous, powerful, and terrible and 'saurus' implies a lizard. Combined together they form the word dinosaur.

The brachiosaurus inhabited the planet, 150-160 million years ago, flourishing in the late Jurassic period, in the Mesozoic Era (the Age of reptiles). They were one of the tallest and largest known dinosaurs and were nicknamed as the 'arm lizards' or the 'great arms' because of their unusually long front arms. They were about 85 feet long (26 meters) and weighed about 33-88 tons; 14 times taller than a normal adult human being! They almost equaled the height of a 7 floor high building! They walked on all four legs and had a very short tail, as compared to their body. The front legs of the brachiosaurus were smaller than the hind legs, unlike the more common dinosaurs, and stood about 24 feet (7.3 meters) above the shoulder. They resembled the giraffes in body structure. Each foot of the dinosaur had five toes with fleshy pods. They also had claws on both the feet. The large nasal openings at top of the head, were an indicative of the good smelling sense of the brachiosaurus. In total, they had 52 teeth, 26 on the upper jaw and 26 on the lower jaw.

The brachiosaurus were purely terrestrial animals. They thrived completely on land. Earlier it was assumed that they lived in water, but recent researches have proved that it was impossible for the brachiosaurus to inhale and inflate their lungs when underwater, due to the water pressure at those depths. The brachiosaurus lived in groups and often migrated in search for food. They usually laid eggs in linear patterns while walking and not in nests. They had a life span of nearly a 100 years. The best defense they had, was their huge size and their sharp theropod teeth.

The brachiosaurus were herbivorous i.e they were plant-eaters. They never chewed their food, but swallowed the entire top of the trees and often the whole tree. They ate a lot - several hundred ounces a day! They digested the food in their gut. They had no possible predators. Most other theropods of those times, were half the size to that of the brachiosaurus. The brachiosaurus were peace loving creatures and lived in herds. Due to their massive sizes, they were often slow and clumsy.

The first fossils of the brachiosaurus were discovered in the Grand River Valley, in Colorado, USA in 1900, by the paleontologist Elmer S. Riggs. Later in 1909, many fossils were found in Tanzania, Africa. Fossils have also been found in North America.

The brachiosaurus had problems of high blood pressure due to their large and massive sizes. The brains and the heads of the brachiosaurus were at an increased height above the heart hence they required very strong hearts for proper blood transmission to their heads. The blood pressure of a brachiosaurus was 400 mm of mercury, nearly 4 times higher to that of humans!

The skeleton of a brachiosaurus dinosaur is preserved in 'The Field Museum of Natural History', in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The brachiosaurus dinosaurs were an incredible species. With further research and an improved understanding of the fossils, we shall be able to discover some more amazing facts about them.