What Do Brachiosaurus Eat
The Brachiosaurus was one of the largest of the land animals standing at almost 50 feet tall. It had a giraffe like stance with a long neck and a surprisingly small head. Each neck vertebra was 3 feet long. The head had large nostrils leading paleontologists to believe it had a keen sense of smell and spent much of its time submerged, breathing through the nostrils at the end of the elongated neck. |
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But recent studies have refuted the submergence theory because the brachiosaurus would not have been able to inhale to inflate its lungs against the water pressure at that depth. At about 85 feet in length, the brachiosaurus weighed around 80 tons.
The brachiosaurus was a quadruped with small comparatively small feet in relation to its huge body. The first digit of the front foot and the first three digits of the hind feet had claws whose purpose was perhaps to rake plants and maybe used as a weapon of self defense. The jaws had 26 teeth each making 52 teeth all located in the front portion of the mouth. The brachiosaurus was a plant eater. Because of its enormous height it accessed the tops of the trees pulling off the branches and leaves with its spatulate teeth and swallowing whole without masticating. The gut was the place where the entire digestive process began.
The brachiosaurus lived in the mid-Jurassic period between 156 and 145 million years ago. Brachiosaurus fossils have been found in Africa and North America. Most of the studies on this mammoth have been based on a complete skeleton found in Tanzania.
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