Diplodocus (meaning double beam) is an extinct genus of diplodocidsauropod dinosaur that lived in western North America during the late Jurassic period about 154 to 150 million years ago.[1] The type species is Diplodocus longus.
Diplodocus was very large, long-necked, quadrupedal animals, with long, whip-like tails. Their forelimbs are slightly shorter than their hind limbs, resulting in a largely horizontal posture. The discovery of partial diplodocid skin impressions in 1990 showed that some species had narrow, pointed, keratinous spines, much like those on an iguana. The spines could be up to 18 centimeters long, on the whip portion of their tails. Although not the type species, D. carnegii is the best known and most famous due to the large number of casts of its skeleton in museums around the world.
History[]
Several species of Diplodocus were described from 1878 and 1924. The first skeleton was found at Cañon City, Colorado by Benjamin Mudge and Samuel Wendell Williston in 1877, and was named Diplodocus longus by paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878 during the Bone Wars.[2]Diplodocus remains have since been found in the Morrison Formation of the Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming. Fossils of this animal are common, except for the skull.
Valid species[]
D. longus, the type species, is known from two skulls and some tail bones from the Morrison Formation of Colorado and Utah [3]
D. carnegii (also spelled D. carnegiei), named after Andrew Carnegie, is the best known, due to a near-complete skeleton collected by Jacob Wortman, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and described and named by John Bell Hatcher in 1901.
D. hallorum, best known as Seismosaurus hallorum.[4] In 2004, a presentation at the annual conference of the Geological Society of America showed that Seismosaurus was in fact a species of Diplodocus.[5] This was followed by a much more detailed publication in 2006, which not only renamed the species Diplodocus hallorum, but also speculated that it could prove to be the same as D. longus.[6] The position that D. hallorum should be regarded as a specimen of D. longus was also taken by the authors of a new description of Supersaurus, refuting a previous hypothesis that Seismosaurus and Supersaurus were the same.[7][8] It is now believed to be from an immature animal, not a separate species [9]
Doubtful species[]
D. lacustris, named by Marsh in 1884, from remains of a small animal from Morrison, Colorado.
Diplodocus, correctly restored with spines on it's back, from Walking with Dinosaurs.
In the Media[]
Diplodocus appears in BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs, Time of the Titans, as the main character following a young female throughout her life, where fully adult Diplodocus measured 131 ft (40 m), and in Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special, where a herd of Diplodocus, migrating to a nesting site to the south, is being hunted a pack of Allosaurus, who are Big Al, and (possibly) his siblings.
Diplodocus appeared in the Netflix Original Documentary Series, Life on Our Planet, where a small herd was being hunted by an Allosaurus at night during a rainy thunderstorm.
Diplodocus on the right side next to Parasaurolophus.
References[]
↑Turner, C.E. and Peterson, F., (1999). "Biostratigraphy of dinosaurs in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the Western Interior, U.S.A." Pp. 77–114 in Gillette, D.D. (ed.), Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah. Utah Geological Survey Miscellaneous Publication 99-1.
↑Marsh OC. Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part I. American Journal of Science 3; 411–416 (1878).
↑Upchurch P, Barrett PM, Dodson P (2004). "Sauropoda". In Weishampel DB, Dodson P, Osmólska H. The Dinosauria (2nd Edition). University of California Press. pp. 305. ISBN0-520-24209-2.
↑Carpenter, K. (2006). "Biggest of the big: a critical re-evaluation of the mega-sauropod Amphicoelias fragillimus." In Foster, J.R. and Lucas, S.G., eds., 2006, Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36: 131–138.
↑Lucas, S.G., Spielman, J.A., Rinehart, L.A., Heckert, A.B., Herne, M.C., Hunt, A.P., Foster, J.R., and Sullivan, R.M. (2006). "Taxonomic status of Seismosaurus hallorum, a Late Jurassic sauropod dinosaur from New Mexico". In Foster, J.R., and Lucas, S.G.. Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (bulletin 36). pp. 149–161. ISSN 1524-4156.
↑Lovelace, David M.; Hartman, Scott A.; and Wahl, William R. (2007). "Morphology of a specimen of Supersaurus (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Morrison Formation of Wyoming, and a re-evaluation of diplodocid phylogeny". Arquivos do Museu Nacional65 (4): 527–544.
↑Marsh, O.C. 1884. Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VII. On the Diplodocidae, a new family of the Sauropoda. American Journal of Science 3: 160–168.
↑Upchurch, P., Barrett, P.M., and Dodson, P. (2004). "Sauropoda." In D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, and H. Osmólska (eds.), The Dinosauria (2nd edition). University of California Press, Berkeley 259–322.
↑Marsh, O.C. 1884. Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VII. On the Diplodocidae, a new family of the Sauropoda. American Journal of Science 3: 160–168.
