⊛ Camarasaurus – Resumenea

NameCamarasaurus lentus SizeLarge EraMesozoic PeriodJurassic FoodHerbivore HabitatNorth America NatureTerrestrial

What is a Camarasaurus?

The Camarasaurus was a sauropod dinosaur that existed in the Jurassic period and was part of the Camarasauridae family. 10 complete skeletons of this specimen have been found.

His skull was relatively small compared to his body.. It had a very light head, due to the openings or fenestrae that he owned. Her nostrils were in front of her eyes, which could be an indication that she possessed a good sense of smell.

It had hollow vertebrae, which lightened its body volume. Added to this is a system of air sacs that served as additional support for its long neck. It had different teeth than other sauropods, which was indicative that it ate differently. They were large and spatulate and allowed him to eat quite thick vegetables.

The discovery of its fossils were indicative that it lived in small herds. She laid eggs but in a row, which could be indicative that she did not take care of her young.

Finding of the Camarasaurus

The first thing that was found of the Camarasaurus was some vertebrae in Colorado, in the United States. It was in 1977 and the person who found these bones was Oramel W. Lucas. It was quickly named after Edward Drinker Cope.

Then came what is known to this day as the Bone War, which was a competition between Edward Drinker Cope and Othinel Charles Marsh to stand out as the best in paleontology.

The latter found a specimen which he named Morosaurus grandis, which is currently a synonym for Camarasaurus. In fact Marsch suggested the species Morosaurus lentus and Morosaurus agilis in 1889.

Later in 1914 Charles Craig Mook renamed the M. Lentus to Camarasaurus Lentus. In 1931 Johnson assigned the M. agilis to the Camarasaurus agilis. There is also the C. supremus named in 1877 and its name translates as the largest chamber lizard.

Added to this are the C. grandis of 1877 and the C. Lewisi of 1988 which was initially thought to be a variant of Cathelosaurus.

3.. They were the remains of a young specimen, which caused it to be represented at that time as much smaller than it was.

In the case of C. Supreme is the best known of the Camarasaurus which apart from its size was not very different from the C. lentus. This huge version is related to the last stage of the Morrison Formation, where it was found. The specimens C. lentus and C. grandis On the other hand, they belong to the earliest phase of this territory.

The stratigraphic study has made it possible to establish the proper sequence that accounts for an evolutionary progression.

For example C. grandis It was found in the lowest levels of the territory. Then there was the C. lentuswho lived with him C. grandis. This would be explained by the fact that they belonged to different ecological niches.

Later he disappeared C. grandis which left only C. lentus. When the latter became extinct, the C. Supreme which was located at the highest levels. The close succession between species and their similarity could be an indication that Supremus evolved from C. lentus.

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Meaning of Camarasaurus

The name Camarasaurus comes from the Greek kamara What does it mean camera and saurus what is lizard. Therefore his name is translated as chamber lizard. It refers to its hollow bones and its system of air sacs that allowed it to reduce the impact of its large body volume.

The family Camarasauridae

The Camarasauridae or chamber lizards They were quadrupedal herbivores that were part of the sauropods. Its relatives are the Diplodocidae and the Brachiosauridae. They lived at the end of the Jurassic and at the beginning of the Cretaceous between 155 and 140 million years ago. They lived in different parts of the world.

Their nostrils were close to their eyes, they had short necks and high skulls. They had forward-facing teeth shaped like a spatula. They also boasted pneumatic vortices with passages and cavities that were part of their system of air sacs connected to their lungs.

This morphological feature was relatively unknown until it was discovered in Camarasaurus. This trait also inspired his name, which means chamber lizard.

The Sauropodomorpha family

The Camarasaurus is also part of the sauropods or Sauropodomorpha, since it meets most of its characteristics. They had a large size, so developed that even their juvenile individuals were larger than similar ones in the area.

They were the largest land animals of their time. Like all quadrupeds, they moved on their four legs. They also had very wide limbs and most had three claws in each one.

Sauropods had spatula teeth that were not enough for them to chew, so they resorted to stones in their stomach called gastroliths. When his teeth fell out, they grew back regularly.

An example of this was the Nigersaurus, which changed its teeth every 14 days, and the Camarasaurus, which changed its teeth every 62 days.

In this case it took longer because these teeth were larger, an adaptation that allowed it to grow more, tearing leaves from branches higher than Nigersaurus.

The neck of sauropods was much longer than that of the giraffes we know today. The reduced development of his head contributed to his lightness, something that was necessary to use less energy to raise his head and reduce tension in the neck with less muscle tissue.

Sauropods were huge, they had a very long neck, thick legs and a peculiar and robust tail that inspired respect in potential predators.

Characteristics of the Camarasaurus

This dinosaur, which has good support in the fossil record, has been able to reveal many of its characteristics. Get to know them below.

Classification

Camarasaurus was a saurischian dinosaur, known to have had lizard-like hips. He was also part of the Macronia who were characterized by having large nostrils, and within this it belongs to the Camarasauridae. Its closest relatives are the Titanosauriforms which include the Brachiosauridae and the Titanosaurus.

Description

The main characteristic of Camarasaurus is that it had hollow vertebrae quite separated from each other.. This gave it a light skeleton, but also a certain fragility when hit.

The arch of its skull was square and part of the snout had windows or openings. It would appear that these skulls were quite fragile. However, they had a considerably rigid structure and proof of this is that the skulls were in excellent condition.

They had five toes on each forefoot. It included a sharp claw on the middle finger and, like most sauropods, its hind legs were shorter than its front legs.

However his shoulders were too high, suggesting that there was not much forward lean. His back was rather horizontal, with some inclination towards the front. They reproduced from the age of 20 and their average lifespan was 26 years.

When and where did he live

Camarasaurus lived about 145 million years ago, and is estimated to have existed for 10 million years, during the Jurassic in the Mesozoic era. He inhabited what is today the Morrison Formation in Colorado, United States, in North America.

Remains of Camarasaurus have been found very close together. In fact, it can be deduced that these animals were social with those of the same gender and that they traveled in groups or herds to protect themselves from possible predators.

Other animals in their habitat

Camarasaurus must have coexisted with large predators such as Allosaurus, which lived at the same time in the Morrison Formation. He also had to take care of Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus.

It would only have been able to defend itself against these attackers with its five-fingered front paws, which had a large, sharp claw on the middle finger. And even if he did it this way, this was no guarantee of success.

It also lived with other sauropods such as Apatosaurus, Barosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Brontosaurus and Diplodocus. In the same way it coexisted with Camptosaurus, Drysaurus, Othnielosaurus and Stegosaurus.

Feeding

One of the hypotheses about this herbivorous sauropod is that it used gastroliths to process its food and obtain its nutrients. However, some specialists have dismissed it, stating that their teeth were very robust and they could have chewed and swallowed food without resorting to this resource.

The vegetation typical of this time and possibly its food were conifers and ferns. But to this we must add, given that they were not as huge as other dinosaurs, that their food was thick and thick vegetation, which other sauropods could not uproot because they did not have teeth as strong as those of the Camarasaurus.

Bones

Even if fairly complete Camarasaurus skeletons have been recovered, it is not possible to know how many there were precisely. It is estimated that this figure was around 200 bones throughout his body.

Communication

Being a herbivorous dinosaur from the Jurassic, it is possible to assume that its most frequent form of communication would be squeals or grunts. It is not possible to know the level or texture of the sounds he may have been able to produce.

Size

The fossils found of the Camarasaurus show that it was a large reptile. The version of C. lentus which was the smallest could measure 15 meters long. While that of C. supremus It measured about 23 meters and could weigh almost 5 tons. Due to their enormous size they were slow moving.

When did Camarasaurus become extinct?

These sauropods lived on Earth during the Jurassic. Specialists say that they existed between 155 to 145 million years ago.