Haplocanthosaurus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Haplocanthosaurus is named after the simple, undivided neural spines on its vertebrae. Most of its giant sauropod cousins had deeply forked or complex spines, but this dinosaur kept things plain and simple, which is exactly what set it apart when paleontologist John Bell Hatcher first described it in 1903.
• ✓The second species, H. delfsi, was discovered by Edwin Delfs, a young college student on a field expedition in Colorado. He was not a seasoned paleontologist but a student who made one of the more notable sauropod finds of the 20th century, with the species formally described in 1988 by Jack McIntosh and Michael Williams.
• ✓Haplocanthosaurus fossils come from the very lowest layers of the Morrison Formation, meaning it lived earlier than iconic dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus and Stegosaurus that are found higher up in the same rock sequence. It was roaming Colorado when those famous giants had not yet appeared on the scene.
• ✓Despite being over 50 feet long and weighing roughly 12,000 kilograms, Haplocanthosaurus is considered a relatively small sauropod for the Morrison Formation, sharing its world with truly colossal neighbors like Supersaurus and Brachiosaurus that dwarfed it completely.
• ✓Haplocanthosaurus lived alongside Allosaurus jimmadseni, one of the apex predators of the Late Jurassic. Even a massive plant-eater like Haplocanthosaurus was not necessarily safe from a large pack or an opportunistic ambush by one of the most fearsome carnivores of its era.