Brachiosaurus

Brachiosaurus

Brachiosaurus
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 7 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.15

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		Brachiosauruses, lizard-footed, lizard-hipped, statistics, further, sauropod, sauropods, pumped, hypothesis, hippopotamus, power, evidence, muscular, million, nearly, longer
	content words:		Grand River Valley, When Brachiosaurus

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Brachiosaurus
By Sharon Fabian

¹     In 1900, some dinosaur bones were discovered in Grand River Valley, Colorado. Once the scientists began to piece the bones together, they must have been amazed at what they had discovered. As they put the pieces together, the skeleton just kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally they had the whole picture. They had discovered a new type of dinosaur that was up to 50 feet tall, up to 85 feet long, and weighed 50 to 80 tons. That's right, up to 80 tons. That's 160,000 pounds! At 50 feet tall, it might be the tallest of all the dinosaurs.

²     As they studied the fossils of this new dinosaur, which they named Brachiosaurus, they learned more about it. Here are a few more Brachiosaurus statistics. Brachiosaurus' neck was 30 feet long and it held its neck upright, like a giraffe does. It ate leaves from the tops of trees. Its front legs were longer than its back legs. This meant that its back sloped upwards in front; this helped it reach really high. It had a small head and brain. It had 52 teeth, and its nostrils were on top of its head. It ate lots of food, and swallowed it whole.

³     Scientists estimated that the Brachiosaurus lived in the mid to late Jurassic period, or about 156 to 145 million years ago. It probably had no predators, because the largest meat eaters living at that time were only half its size. Brachiosauruses may have traveled in herds to find the huge amount of plants that they needed for food. When they ran out, maybe they migrated to another location. Brachiosaurus babies were born from eggs. A Brachiosaurus could live up to about the age of 100.

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