Apatosaurus is a large herbivorous sauropod that lived in North America in the Late Jurassic. There are two recognized species of Apatosaurus with the type species A. ajax representing the genus in Prehistoric Kingdom.
Brontosaurus is also included as an alternate genus to Apatosaurus.
In-Game[]
Description[]
Apatosaurus ajax is a huge sauropod that is both paradoxically sleek yet robust in nature. Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus differ in their integument, with Brontosaurus bearing an array of keratinous spikes along its back, tail and neck while Apatosaurus lacks spikes.
Apatosaurus has two skins, with both being rather plain in appearance. The simple nature of these skins harkens back to classic depictions of these animals reminiscent of the monotone nature of many modern mammalian megafauna such as elephants and rhinoceroses.
Management[]
To be announced.
In-Game Trivia[]
Nigel Marven
The name Apatosaurus means “deceptive lizard”, and I can’t think of a more fitting moniker for a dinosaur with such a complicated history.
Nigel Marven
For the longest time, nobody knew what the head of Apatosaurus looked like. Paleontologists debated over whether it should look more like a Diplodocus or a Camarasaurus until its real skull was confirmed in 1978. Now that’s turning heads!
Nigel Marven
When the man who discovered Apatosaurus in 1877 shipped fossils to both Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, he inadvertently caused a chain reaction leading to one of craziest, most heated eras in fossil collecting history, the Bone Wars.
Paleontology[]
Apatosaurus was named in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh, with the type species being Apatosaurus ajax. Marsh and his rival Edward Drinker Cope were embroiled in the infamous Bone Wars when Apatosaurus was named, much like numerous other dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation. The bones of Apatosaurus were first uncovered by Arthur Lakes and his friend Henry C. Beckwith in the spring of 1877 in the town of Morrison in the state of Colorado. Arthur wrote to both Marsh and Cope, but only Marsh was able to fully capitalize on the cache of bones uncovered by Lakes. Arthur Lakes also produced a painting of Yale Peabody Museum crew members excavating the bones of Apatosaurus ajax, offering a rare insight into the early history of American paleontology. Once the bones were excavated and sent to Marsh, he named the massive animal "The Deceptive Lizard" due to apparent similarities between the chevrons of Apatosaurus and mosasaurs. The species epithet A. ajax is named after the mythical ancient Greek hero Ajax who fought in the Trojan War according to The Iliad. The name may also reference the fossilized nature of the animal as the name Ajax can be translated roughly to "of the earth", however other translations do exist and it is uncertain if it was Marsh's intent. A second species, Apatosaurus louisae, was named by William H. Holland in 1916, with the species being named after Louise Carnegie, the wife of expedition financier Andrew Carnegie.
Much later in 2011, the first articulated skull and neck vertebrae certainly belonging to Apatosaurus was found, and in 2013 some authors reported on skull material being found at the original A. ajax quarry found by Lakes all those years ago. An ironic twist of fate given the years of drama in the 1900s caused by the use of a Camarasaurus skull on a mount of Brontosaurus, rather than a more Diplodocus-like skull befitting of a diplodocid. Perhaps if Lakes had dug around a little longer, the now infamous "Skull Issue" may have never come to pass.
Paleoecology[]
Apatosaurus lived in the Morrison Formation alongside other famous dinosaurs, such as Dryosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Torvosaurus, Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus.
WIP
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were once in contention for title of Largest Land Animal Ever, although they were eventually superseded by the more recently discovered colossal Macronarian sauropods such as Brachiosaurus and Argentinosaurus.
- Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are the first diplodocoids to be added to Prehistoric Kingdom, the group of "whip-tailed" sauropods which includes animals such as Diplodocus and Nigersaurus.
- Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are mainstays of almost anything with dinosaurs in it, with 1914's Gertie The Dinosaur being the oldest known animation featuring dinosaurs. The star of the film was a sauropod named Gertie who was based off of a Brontosaurus skeleton displayed in the American Museum of Natural History.
- Other notable instances of Apatosaurus appearing in media include 1988's The Land Before Time's Littlefoot the Apatosaurus and both The Good Dinosaur and Jurasic World in 2015 among others.
- Beyond appearances by the animals themselves Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus have an extensive history of design inspirations. Apatosaurus ajax specifically can lay claim to inspiring a bizarre Star Wars starfighter, the T-20 Umbaran Starfighter seen in the 4th season of The Clone Wars in 2011 was specifically modeled after the strange form of a Cervical Vertebra from the neck of Apatosaurus ajax. Designer David Hobbins used photos taken of a single vertebra of the sauropod that was on display at the California Academy of Sciences to give the ship an sleek and organic but alien design.
- This makes Apatosaurus one of many extinct animals used as inspirations for Star Wars, including Paraceratherium and Elasmotherium among others.
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