Apatosaurus
by Becca D.
The animal that I am studying is the Apatosaurus, and it’s a dinosaur. It is 69-85 feet long and weighs 10-40 tons. The Apatosaurus lived in southern France and in Colorado. The Apatosaurus took up one whole room in the museum. Most of the eggs and fossils were found in southern France and other parts of France. Those were just some interesting facts about the Apatosaurus.
The Apatosaurus is related to all the animals on the cladogram. It first was a vertebrate, which means that it had a backbone. The second trait was a gnathostome, which means it had a jawbone. Third, it evolved into a tetrapod, which means it had four limbs. The fourth trait that it evolved was an amniote, which means that it doesn’t need to lay their eggs in the water. The fifth trait that it evolved was sauropsids, which means a pair of openings in the palate. The sixth trait that it evolved was dinosaurs, which means that they have a hole in the hip socket so that they can have straight posture. The seventh trait they evolved was saurischians, and saurischians had grasping hands.
The Apatosaurus evolved a grasping hand and was not able to move its head up very high. The Apatosaurus is most closely related to the animals from the Dilophosaurus to the seagull. The way that I figured that those animals were closely related to the Apatosaurus was by tracing my animal’s branch to the closest node. Any animals that branch from that from that node forward are their closest relatives. Those were some of the Apatosaurus’s relatives.
Here are more facts about the Apatosaurus. It lived about 145-155 million years ago (Late Jurassic). Its diet was plants. Also it is an herbivore, which means that it only ate plants. The Apatosaurus means “deceptive lizard”. The Apatosaurus is one of the largest dinosaurs.
Last updated April 7, 2007.