a herbivorous diplodocine sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America.
Pronunciation: BAR-o-SOR-us
Meaning: Heavy lizard
Author/s: Marsh (
1890)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: South Dakota, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #72
Barosaurus lentus
Etymology
Barosaurus is derived from the Greek "barys" (heavy) and "sauros" (lizard) because of its large size. The
species epithet,
lentus, means "slow" in Latin.
ZooBank registry:
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:D72B145D-2C19-4541-9314-F95AF1A6FA77.
Discovery
The first remains of
Barosaurus were discovered in the Morrison Formation of South Dakota, USA by Ms. E.R. Ellerman, and were excavated by John Bell Hatcher of Yale University in 1889.
The
holotype (YPM 429) consists of six tail vertebrae,
but further vertebrae, ribs and limb bones from the same specimen—left in the ground and under the watchful eye of the landowners—were removed by George Reber Wieland nine years later. The most complete specimen of
Barosaurus was excavated from the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument in 1923 by Earl Douglass, but its remains were spread across the University of Utah, Washington's National Museum of Natural History, and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, until Barnum Brown had them all shipped to New York City's American Museum of Natural History in 1929.
Some experts suspect that a 1.37 metre long neck vertebra that has long been assigned to the holotype of
Supersaurus vivianae from Colorado's Morrison Formation might actually belong to
Barosaurus, which, when applying proportionate upscaling, would result in a beast some 66 tons in weight and 48 meters in length, with a neck accounting for at least 15 metres of that. Not everyone agrees.
Other Species
Barosaurus affinis.
Barosaurus africanus.
Barosaurus gracilis.
• Marsh OC (1890) "
Description of new dinosaurian reptiles".
American Journal of Science, 3(39): 81-86. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s3-39.229.81.
• Marsh OC (1898) "
On the families of sauropodous Dinosauria".
American Journal of Science, 4(6): 487-488. DOI: 10.1017/S0016756800142980.
• Foster JR (1996) "Sauropod dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), Black Hills, South Dakota and Wyoming".
Rocky Mountain Geology (1996) 31(1): 1-25.
•
McIntosh JS (2005) "The genus
Barosaurus Marsh" in Carpenter and Tidswell (eds.) "
Thunder Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs".
• Lovelace DM, Hartman SA and Wahl WR (2007) "
Morphology of a specimen of Supersaurus (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Morrison Formation of Wyoming, and a re-evaluation of diplodocid phylogeny".
Arquivos do Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, 4: 527-544.
• Maier G (2003) "
African Dinosaurs Unearthed: The Tendaguru Expeditions".
• Taylor M (2019) "
Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 2b: The size of the BYU 9024 animal".
SV-Pow! June 16, 2019.
• Molina-Perez R and Larramendi A (2020) "
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: The Sauropods" [aka Dinosaur Facts and Figures: The Sauropods and Other Sauropodomorphs].
• Curtice B (2021) "
New Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry Supersaurus vivianae (Jensen 1985) axial elements provide additional insight into its phylogenetic relationships and size, suggesting an animal that exceeded 39 meters in length".
Page 92 in The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Virtual Meeting conference Program, November 1-5, 2021.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
BAROSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/BAROSAURUS›. Web access: 06th Mar 2026.
