Brachiosaurus Dinosaur Facts

Video Transcript

"Okay, now for some more of those Sauropods that actually were weightier. Here we have the Brachiosaurus, which means the arm lizard because his front legs which could be construed as arms, much bigger than his hind legs. So this enabled him to put them up on trees and reach the tallest leaves on each and every tree. Because he was seventy-five to ninety feet in length, and also weighed anywhere from eighty-five to a hundred and fifteen tons. So he had to consume a great deal of food. Also had those Gastroliths. Also had a tail that could be whipped, but basically he wouldn't have had too much trouble with predators considering his size. Now please note an unusual feature. His nostrils are up here, above his eyes instead of down here where they should be, the nostrils would be such as up here on top of my head. That's what you have at the crown there, his nostrils. And the question is why? Now let's look at another relative here of his, also from that period, the upper Jurassic. Again, and hundred thirty-five to a hundred and fifty million years ago. This is the Camerosaurus, he was a probably weighed ten to thirty tons, and was sixty-five feet long. And he also had his nostrils above his eyes. Had a whip tail, and again, a friendly vegetarian. The question is, is it possible that this creature had a trunk? You know if you found the skeleton of an elephant, and didn't know what it looked like, you would not know it had a trunk because over time the trunk which has no bones would have dissipated. And there would be no trace of if in the fossil record, the same with this critter. And also Brachiosaurus here. It's possible that the nostrils above the head indicate they had a trunk, because that is how elephants are biologically designed. So that would be interesting if this creature had a trunk. And there could be other appendages on other Dinos we don't know about, again, all lost to the fossil record. Now intriguingly, we've also found Dwarf Dinosaurs. Specifically, a small Camerosaurus was found on an island just North of Germany. It's believed that these Dinos got trapped on that island with limited food and over time, evolved into these mini Dinosaurs. For example, he might have only been ten feet long and weighed one to two tons. Still large by contemporary standards, but small compared to his larger brother. And again, we believe he might have had a smaller trunk. Can't prove it, but we can't disprove it either. There's some reason those nostrils were above the head."