Giraffatitan
| Giraffatitan Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 150–145 Ma |
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| Skeleton on display in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Infraorder: | †Sauropoda |
| Family: | †Brachiosauridae |
| Genus: | †Giraffatitan Paul, 1988 |
| Species | |
Giraffatitan (meaning "giraffe titan") is a genus of sauropod dinosaurs that lived during the late Jurassic Period about 140 million years ago.[1] It was one of the largest animals known to have walked the earth.
Giraffatitans were about 23-metre (75 ft) tall and weighed about 40 tonnes (88,000 lb). They had very long necks and looked like giraffes. They lived in Tanzania in an area called Tendaguru.[2]
It was first named as an African species of Brachiosaurus (B. brancai) in 1914 by Werner Janensch because some dinosaurs found in the same area looked like it.[3] In 1988, Gregory S. Paul said that there were some differences between the Brachiosaurus brancai and the North American Brachiosaurus, so he created a subgenus called Brachiosaurus (Giraffatitan) brancai. In 1991, George Olshevsky said there were enough differences to make its own genus, creating Giraffatitan.[4]
References [change]
- ↑ Potter, Christopher (2010). You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe (reprint ed.). HarperCollins. pp. 26. ISBN 0061137871.
- ↑ Gregory S. Paul, Gregory S. (2010). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. pp. 201. ISBN 069113720X.
- ↑ Janensch, W. (1914). "Übersicht über der Wirbeltierfauna der Tendaguru-Schichten nebst einer kurzen Charakterisierung der neu aufgeführten Arten von Sauropoden." Archiv für Biontologie, 3 (1): 81–110.
- ↑ Glut, D.F. (1997). "Brachiosaurus". Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company. p. 218. ISBN 0-89950-917-7.
Other websites [change]
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For more multimedia, go to Category:Giraffatitan. |
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Wikispecies has an entry on: Brachiosaurus |
