The Gentle Giant With the Long Reach

About this drawing

Look closely at a smiling brachiosaurus and something seems off, since its shoulders sit higher than its hips. The name means arm lizard, a nod to front legs that were longer than the back ones. That is a very unusual setup for a dinosaur.

Think of it as the giraffe of the Jurassic. That sloping body let it reach treetops far above most other plant eaters. While shorter dinosaurs competed for food near the ground, brachiosaurus had a private buffet up high, stripping leaves from conifers and other tall plants.

It lived around 150 million years ago, and its fossils come from the American West, including Colorado and Utah. It could grow longer than two school buses parked end to end, and its head could tower several stories above the ground. Feeding a body that big probably took most of the day. Its chisel-shaped teeth raked off leaves, and it swallowed them with very little chewing.

Those thick, pillar-like legs had to hold up tens of tons, much like an elephant's legs but on a far larger scale. Once it reached full size, very few predators would have tried their luck. Sometimes just being enormous is the best defense there is.

• dinosaurs
• brachiosaurus
• plant eaters
• jurassic