Brontomerus Fact Sheet
21st February 2011
This fact-sheet is part of the
Brontomerus Press Pack.
See the main Press-Pack page for images and videos.
What the paper says
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Brontomerus mcintoshi is a newly-discovered sauropod
dinosaur. The name Brontomerus refers to a genus
(like Homo) and the full name Brontomerus mcintoshi
refers to the species (like Homo sapiens). Since there is
only one known species of Brontomerus, it usually suffices
to use only the genus name. (Like all genus and species names,
this is always set in italics.)
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Sauropod dinosaurs, known informally as "long-necks", include
familiar animals such as Apatosaurus, Diplodocus,
and Brachiosaurus.
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The fossil remains of Brontomerus come from a quarry in
eastern Utah, USA.
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Brontomerus lived about 110 million years ago, during the
Early Cretaceous Period.
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Other dinosaurs known from North America during the Early
Cretaceous Period include Acrocanthosaurus, a giant
predator similar in size
to T. rex; Deinonychus and Utahraptor,
two feathered dromaeosaurs or "raptors", similar to
the raptors in Jurassic Park; Tenontosaurus, a
cow-sized plant eater related to Iguanodon,
and Gastonia, an early armored dinosaur that was also a
plant-eater.
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The genus name Brontomerus means "thunder thighs", chosen
because the shape of the ilium or hip bone shows
that Brontomerus had extremely large thigh muscles.
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We don't know for sure why Brontomerus had such large thigh
muscles. Possibly it used them to kick predators or rivals, and
possibly they helped it travel over rough terrain.
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The species name mcintoshi honors Jack McIntosh, a retired
Wesleyan physicist who has done a lot of important work on
sauropods.
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The fossil remains of Brontomerus are incomplete but
include many different parts of the skeleton, including vertebrae,
ribs, a shoulder blade and a hip bone.
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The fossils of Brontomerus come from at least two
individual animals, a pony-sized juvenile and a larger,
elephant-sized animal that might have been a parent or relative of
the smaller one. It is not unusual to find fossils of sauropods
together in family groups.
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The Early Cretaceous Period used to be thought of as a sort of
"dark age" in the middle of the Age of Dinosaurs, in that until
recently few dinosaurs were known from that
period. Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Allosaurus
and Stegosaurus all lived earlier, in the Late Jurassic
Period; and T. rex, Triceratops, and most of
the duckbills and armored dinosaurs lived later, during the Late
Cretaceous Period.
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In the last two decades we have learned much more about the Early
Cretaceous Period because paleontologists have sent more of their
time searching for fossils in rocks from that period. These
expeditions have led to the discovery of many new dinosaurs and
other extinct animals.
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It is not unusual for new dinosaurs to be discovered even in very
well-studied areas like North America. Although the first
dinosaurs were named almost 200 years ago, more than half of all
known dinosaurs have been discovered in the last 30 years.
What the paper does NOT say
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We do not say:
Brontomerus was the biggest dinosaur.
Fact:
The larger of the two individuals was about the size of an
elephant, which is small for a sauropod, but it might not have
finished growing when it died.
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We do not say:
The two individuals of Brontomerus for which we have
fossils are a mother and its baby.
Fact:
That is a possibility, but we have no way of proving or disproving
it.
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We do not say:
The smaller individual of Brontomerus was a hatchling.
Fact:
Based on growth patterns in other sauropods, the smaller
individual of Brontomerus was probably several years old
when it died.
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We do not say:
Sauropods practiced parental care.
Fact:
Sauropods buried their eggs in small nests and probably did not
care for the hatchlings at all. Juvenile sauropods did not join
herds with adults until a few years after they hatched.
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We do not say:
Brontomerus is the first dinosaur or the first sauropod
discovered from the Early Cretaceous of North America.
Fact:
Many dinosaurs are known from that time, including many other
sauropods. This is mainly because of successful dinosaur-hunting
expeditions in the 1990s and 2000s.
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We do not say:
Brontomerus lived at the same time as T. rex.
Fact:
Although they both lived in the Cretaceous, nearly 50 million
years separated them.