Brachiosaurus was a huge, plant-eating dinosaur that had a giraffe-like stance. It is one of the tallest and largest dinosaurs yet found, and may have lived in Earth-shaking herds. This giant sauropod lived during the middle to late Jurassic period, about 156-145 million years ago.

Anatomy: Brachiosaurus walked on four legs and, like the other Brachiosaurids and unlike most dinosaurs, its front legs were longer than its hind legs. Brachiosaurus was about 85 feet long (26 m). It had a claw on the first toe of each front foot and claws on the first three toes of each rear foot (each foot had five toes with fleshy pads). Like other Brachiosaurids, it had chisel-like teeth, its nostrils were on the top of its head, and it had large nasal openings indicating that it may have had a good sense of smell. This plant-eater had 26 teeth on its top jaw and 26 on the bottom for a total of 52 teeth towards the front of the mouth.

Fossils and Name: Brachiosaurus was first found in the Grand River Valley, in western Colorado, USA, in 1900. This incomplete skeleton was described by paleontologist Elmer S. Riggs, who named Brachiosaurus in 1903. In 1909, Werner Janensch found many Brachiosaurus fossils in Tanzania, Africa. Many Brachiosaurus fossils have been found, in North America and Africa.