Apatosaurus — Apatosaurus
Apatosaurus Durbed, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Dinosaur

Apatosaurus

Deceptive lizard

Apatosaurus is the heavier-built Morrison diplodocid, the animal long called Brontosaurus (a name revived for some specimens in 2015). Its bones are massive and are sold as sections and slices of agatised limb bone; teeth are diplodocid pegs indistinguishable from Diplodocus. Agatised 'dinosaur bone' cabochons from Utah are mostly sauropod and rarely identifiable to genus.

PhylumChordata
ClassReptilia
OrderSaurischia
FamilyDiplodocidae
GroupDinosaur
Rank (PBDB)genus· Paleobiology Database
AuthorMarsh 1877· Paleobiology Database
Classification (PBDB)Chordata › Saurischia › NO_ORDER_SPECIFIED › Diplodocidae· Paleobiology Database
Range (PBDB)158–143 Ma· Paleobiology Database
PBDB occurrences67· Paleobiology Database

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Apatosaurus" (Taxon). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/taxa/apatosaurus. Accessed 2026-09-20.

@misc{stratum-apatosaurus,
  title        = {Apatosaurus},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/taxa/apatosaurus}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Taxon article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, pbdb, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.