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104-560: Brontosaurus ( / ˌ b r ɒ n t ə ˈ s ɔːr ə s / ; meaning "thunder lizard" from the Greek words βροντή , brontē "thunder" and σαῦρος , sauros "lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in present-day United States during the Late Jurassic period. It was described by American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, the type species being dubbed B. excelsus , based on

208-486: A Camarasaurus '. In 1998, the Felch Quarry skull that Marsh included in his 1896 skeletal restoration was suggested to belong to Brachiosaurus instead and this was supported in 2020 with a redescription of the brachiosaurid material found at the Felch Quarry. During a Carnegie Museum expedition to Wyoming in 1901, William Harlow Reed collected another Brontosaurus skeleton, a partial postcranial skeleton of

312-710: A natural history museum at Yale . While studying at the University of Berlin in late 1863, the 32-year-old Marsh first met 25-year-old Edward Drinker Cope , who was also on a scientific tour of Europe. Cope had much less formal schooling than Marsh, but had already published thirty-seven papers. The two Americans spent a few days together and would become friends. After a salmon fishing excursion with Peabody in Ireland, Marsh returned to America in July or August 1865. Marsh had expected Peabody's gift would have resulted in

416-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

520-415: A taxonomic synonym of its close relative Apatosaurus , but a 2015 study by Emmanuel Tschopp and colleagues found it to be distinct. It has seen widespread representation in popular culture, being the archetypal "long-necked" dinosaur in general media. The anatomy of Brontosaurus is well known, with fossils demonstrating that it was large, long-necked, and quadrupedal with a long tail terminating in

624-461: A bifurcate top. The neural spines of the dorsals would increase in height further towards the tail, creating an arched back. Apatosaurine neural spines compose more than half the height of the vertebrae. Medial surfaces of neural spines are gently rounded in B. yahnahpin , whereas in other B. spp. they are not. The dorsal ribs are not fused or tightly attached to their vertebrae, instead being loosely articulated. Ten dorsal ribs are on either side of

728-516: A hundred new species of vertebrate fossils. After 1876, Marsh employed bone hunters who shipped specimens back to him; he did not return west himself until 1879. When Cope began prospecting for fossils in the Bridger Basin, which Marsh considered "his" territory, their relationship deteriorated into hostility. Marsh served as Vertebrate Paleontologist of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1882 to 1892. Thanks to John Wesley Powell , head of

832-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

936-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

1040-419: A long, whip-like tail, and forelimbs that were slightly shorter than its hindlimbs. The largest species, B. excelsus , measured up to 21–22 m (69–72 ft) long from head to tail and weighed up to 15–17 t (17–19 short tons); other species were smaller, measuring 19 m (62 ft) long and weighing 14 t (15 short tons). The skull of Brontosaurus has not been found but was probably similar to

1144-480: A meeting of the American Association, Marsh elected to join other members to Omaha on a "geological excursion"; it was Marsh's first trip to the far western United States, and it inspired him to return to prospect. Marsh organized a series of private expeditions starting in 1870 to 1874, with the prospecting groups composed of Yale students or recent graduates. The first of these uncovered more than

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1248-595: A partial skeleton lacking a skull found in Como Bluff , Wyoming . In subsequent years, two more species of Brontosaurus were named: B. parvus in 1902 and B. yahnahpin in 1994. Brontosaurus lived about 156 to 146 million years ago (mya) during the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian ages in the Morrison Formation of what is now Utah and Wyoming. For decades, the animal was thought to have been

1352-440: A position at Yale, but it took until 1866 when Yale established a chair of paleontology at the university. Marsh was given the position, but no salary was attached; biographer George Grinnell suggested that this suited Marsh just fine, as he was more interested in research than teaching. Marsh's interests shifted entirely to paleontology, and after 1869 his other scientific contributions mostly ceased. While teaching, Marsh toured

1456-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

1560-419: A professor of science. While in graduate school, Marsh published his first scientific papers on minerals and vertebrate fossils from his Nova Scotia trips, which possibly inspired Marsh's interest in vertebrate paleontology. He obtained his masters degree in 1862. Following school, Marsh declined a professorship at Yale and instead took a tour of Europe; it is possible the trip was to avoid being drafted into

1664-992: A record 1400 scientific papers. Marsh named the following dinosaur genera : He named the suborders Ceratopsia (1890), Ceratosauria (1884), Ornithopoda (1881), Stegosauria (1877), and Theropoda (1881). He also named the families Allosauridae (1878), Anchisauridae (1885), Camptosauridae (1885), Ceratopsidae (1890), Ceratosauridae , Coeluridae , Diplodocidae (1884), Dryptosauridae (1890), Nodosauridae (1890), Ornithomimidae (1890), Plateosauridae (1895), and Stegosauridae (1880). Marsh dubbed many additional species of dinosaur as well, notable taxa including Allosaurus fragilis , Triceratops horridus , Stegosaurus stenops , Ornithomimus velox , and Brontosaurus excelsus . Dinosaurs named by others in honour of Marsh include Hoplitosaurus marshi (Lucas, 1901), Iaceornis marshi (Clarke, 2004), Marshosaurus (Madsen, 1976), Othnielia (Galton, 1977), and Othnielosaurus (Galton, 2007). Marsh's finds formed

1768-408: A sculpted model of what the museum felt the skull of this massive creature might have looked like was placed on the skeleton. This was not a delicate skull like that of Diplodocus , which would later turn out to be more accurate, but was based on "the biggest, thickest, strongest skull bones, lower jaws, and tooth crowns from three different quarries". These skulls were likely those of Camarasaurus ,

1872-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

1976-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

2080-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

2184-530: A whip-like structure. The cervical vertebrae are notably extremely robust and heavily-built, in contrast to its lightly built relatives Diplodocus and Barosaurus . The forelimbs were short and stout whereas the hindlimbs were elongated and thick, supported respectively by a heavily built shoulder girdle and pelvis . Several size estimates have been made, with the largest species B. excelsus reaching up to 21–22 m (69–72 ft) from head to tail and weighing in at 15–17 t (17–19 short tons), whereas

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2288-489: A young juvenile (CM 566), including partial limbs. However, this individual was found intermingled with a fairly complete skeleton of an adult (UW 15556). The adult skeleton specifically was very well-preserved, bearing many cervical (neck) and caudal (tail) vertebrae, and is the most complete definite specimen of the species. The skeletons were granted a new genus and species name, Elosaurus parvus ("little field lizard"), by Olof A. Peterson and Charles Gilmore in 1902. Both of

2392-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

2496-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

2600-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

2704-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

2808-452: Is longer and slenderer than the tibia. The foot of Brontosaurus has three claws on the innermost digits; the digit formula is 3-4-5-3-2. The first metatarsal is the stoutest, a feature shared among diplodocids. B. excelsus' astragalus differs from other species in that it lacks a laterally directed ventral shelf. Brontosaurus is a member of the family Diplodocidae, a clade of gigantic sauropod dinosaurs . The family includes some of

2912-475: Is the presence of a depression on the posterior face of the scapula, which the latter lacks. The scapula of Brontosaurus also has a rounded extension off of its edge, a characteristic unique to Brontosaurus among Apatosaurinae. The coracoid anatomy is closely akin to that of Apatosaurus , with a quadratic outline in dorsal view. Sterna have been preserved in some specimens of Brontosaurus, which display an oval outline. The hip bones include robust ilia and

3016-680: Is the result of an analysis by Tschopp, Mateus, and Benson (2015). The authors analyzed most diplodocid type specimens separately to deduce which specimen belonged to which species and genus. YPM 1840 (" Atlantosaurus " immanis type) NSMT-PV 20375 AMNH 460 YPM 1860 ( Apatosaurus ajax type) CM 3018 ( Apatosaurus louisae type) YPM 1861 ( Apatosaurus laticollis type) YPM 1980 ( Brontosaurus excelsus type) YPM 1981 ( Brontosaurus amplus type) AMNH 5764 ( Amphicoelias altus type) FMNH P25112 Tate-001 ( Eobrontosaurus yahnahpin type) Ancient Greek Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

3120-489: The American Civil War , although he might have also been disqualified from service on account of his eyesight. Marsh traveled through England, France, Germany, and Switzerland, studying with or making the acquaintance of prominent scientists such as Heinrich Ernst Beyrich , Wilhelm Peters , Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Henry Woodward . In discussions with his uncle, Marsh convinced the businessman to fund

3224-708: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

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3328-663: The Middle Jurassic but peaked in diversity during the Late Jurassic with forms like Brontosaurus before becoming extinct in the Early Cretaceous. Brontosaurus is a genus in the subfamily Apatosaurinae , which includes only it and Apatosaurus, which are distinguished by their firm builds and thick necks. Although Apatosaurinae was named in 1929, the group was not used validly until an extensive 2015 paper, which found Brontosaurus to be valid. However,

3432-574: The Paleontological Society of America , yet he left the Carnegie Museum mount headless. While some thought Holland was attempting to avoid conflict with Osborn, others suspected that Holland was waiting until an articulated skull and neck were found to confirm the association of the skull and skeleton. After Holland's death in 1934, a cast of a Camarasaurus skull was placed on the mount by museum staff. No apatosaurine skull

3536-605: The Tate Geological Museum , also from the Morrison Formation of central Wyoming. The specimen consisted of a partial postcranial skeleton, including a complete manus and multiple vertebrae, and was described by James Filla and Pat Redman a year later. Filla and Redman named the specimen Apatosaurus yahnahpin ("yahnahpin-wearing deceptive lizard"), but Robert T. Bakker gave it the genus name Eobrontosaurus in 1998. Bakker believed that Eobrontosaurus

3640-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

3744-444: The radius and ulna could cross, when in life they would have remained parallel. Brontosaurus had a single large claw on each forelimb which faced towards the body, whereas the rest of the phalanges lacked unguals . Even by 1936, it was recognized that no sauropod had more than one hand claw preserved, and this one claw is now accepted as the maximum number throughout the entire group. The metacarpals are elongated and thinner than

3848-467: The 1630s. Mary died shortly after the birth of her fourth child in 1834. Caleb remarried in 1836 and Othniel moved with the family to Bradford, Massachusetts . Soon after, Caleb's business fortunes soured, and Othniel's early years were marked by financial struggles. Caleb purchased a farm in Lockport when Marsh was twelve. As the eldest son, Othniel was expected to assist his father on the farm, and

3952-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

4056-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

4160-522: The Carnegie. In 1995, the American Museum of Natural History followed suit, and unveiled their remounted skeleton (now labelled Apatosaurus excelsus ) with a corrected tail and a new skull cast from A. louisae . In 1998, Robert T. Bakker referred a skull and mandible of an apatosaurine from Como Bluff to Brontosaurus excelsus ( TATE 099-01) , though the skull is still undescribed. In 2011,

4264-635: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs,   Othniel Charles Marsh Born into a modest family, Marsh was able to afford higher education thanks to the generosity of his wealthy uncle George Peabody . After graduating from Yale College in 1860 he travelled

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4368-627: The Diplodocidae after Tschopp, Mateus , and Benson (2015): Amphicoelias altus Unnamed species Apatosaurus ajax Apatosaurus louisae Brontosaurus excelsus Brontosaurus yahnahpin Brontosaurus parvus Unnamed species Tornieria africana Supersaurus lourinhanensis Supersaurus vivianae Leinkupal laticauda Galeamopus hayi Diplodocus carnegii Diplodocus hallorum Kaatedocus siberi Barosaurus lentus The cladogram below

4472-472: The Felch Quarry skull. While at the time most museums were using Camarasaurus casts for skulls, the Peabody Museum sculpted a completely different skull based on Marsh's recon. Marsh's skull was inaccurate for several other reasons: it included forward-pointing nasals, something truly different to any other dinosaur, and fenestrae differing from the drawing and other skulls. The mandible was based on

4576-522: The Greek brontē / βροντη meaning "thunder" and sauros / σαυρος meaning "lizard", and from the Latin excelsus , "noble" or "high". By this time, the Morrison Formation had become the center of the Bone Wars , a fossil-collecting rivalry between Marsh and another early paleontologist, Edward Drinker Cope . Because of this, the publications and descriptions of taxa by Marsh and Cope were rushed at

4680-530: The Law of brain growth, which states that, during the tertiary period, many taxonomic groups presented gradual increase in the size of the brain. This evolutionary law remains being used due to its explanatory, and to a certain extent, predictive potential Prior to Marsh's efforts, the entirety of fossil remains known in North America was quite small. As a result of the generosity of George Peabody , Marsh

4784-906: The Peabody fossil hall. He donated his home in New Haven, Connecticut, to Yale University in 1899. The Othniel C. Marsh House , now known as Marsh Hall, is designated a National Historic Landmark . Marsh Hall serves as the home of the Yale School of Forestry at the Yale School of the Environment . The grounds are now known as the Marsh Botanical Garden . Marsh was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1877. Marsh formulated

4888-649: The USGS, and Marsh's contacts in Washington, Marsh was placed at the head of the consolidated government survey in the late 1880s. In 1880, Marsh caught the attention of the scientific world with the publication of Odontornithes: a Monograph on Extinct Birds of North America, which included his discoveries of birds with teeth. These skeletons helped bridge the gap between dinosaurs and birds, and provided invaluable support for Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin wrote to Marsh saying, "Your work on these old birds & on

4992-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

5096-467: The aquatic reptile Elasmosaurus , was flawed: Cope had placed the head of the animal where its tail should have been. Marsh's criticism wrankled Cope, and threatened his nascent career; he responded by critiquing errors in Marsh's work, and moving in on areas Marsh was prospecting in. Their relationship began to sour. Marsh was looking further afield than New Jersey for fossils. After visiting Chicago for

5200-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

5304-585: The backbone of the collections of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution . Marsh has been called "both a superb paleontologist and the greatest proponent of Darwinism in nineteenth-century America." Othniel Charles Marsh was born on October 29, 1831, near Lockport, New York. He was the third of four children born to Mary Gaines Peabody (1807–1834) and Caleb Marsh (1800–1865). The Marsh (nee Marshe) family and Peabody families immigrated to America from England in

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5408-447: The body. Expanded excavations within the sacrum are present making it into a hollow cylinder-shape. Sacral neural spines are fused together into a thin plate. The posteriormost caudal vertebra was lightly fused to the sacral vertebrae, becoming part of the plate. Internally, the neural canal was enlarged. The shape of the tail was typical of diplodocids, being comparatively slender, due to the vertebral spines rapidly decreasing in height

5512-503: The bones which aided in keeping the animal lighter. Within the vertebrae as well, smooth bone walls in addition to diverticula would make pockets of air to keep the bones light. Similar structures are observable in birds and large mammals. The cervical vertebrae were stouter than those of other diplodocids, as in Apatosaurus . On the lateral sides of the cervicals, apatosaurines had well-developed and thick parapophyses (extensions on

5616-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

5720-599: The country, visiting museums to inform the planning of the Yale Museum. In 1868, he visited Cope; since their meeting, they had expressed warm wishes in letters to each other and even named species after each other. Cope took Marsh on a tour of the marl pits in New Jersey where he was finding fossils; unbeknownst to Cope, Marsh would later pay the pit operators to divert their finds to him instead of Cope. Marsh later noted that Cope's reconstruction of his newest find,

5824-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

5928-434: The farther they are from the hips. As in other diplodocids, the last portion of the tail of Brontosaurus possessed a whip-like structure. The tail also bears an extensive air-sac system to lighten its weight, as observed in specimens of B. parvus . Several scapulae are known from Brontosaurus , all of which are long and thin with relatively elongated shafts. One of traits that distinguishes Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus

6032-399: The first specimen of Apatosaurus where a skull was found articulated with its cervical vertebrae was described. This specimen, CMC VP 7180, was found to differ in both skull and neck features from A. louisae , and the specimen was found to have a majority of features related to those of A. ajax . Another specimen of an Apatosaurine now referred to Brontosaurus was discovered in 1993 by

6136-500: The first-ever mounted skeleton of a sauropod, a composite specimen (mainly made of bones from AMNH 460) that they referred to as Brontosaurus excelsus . The AMNH specimen was very complete, only missing the feet, from the specimen AMNH 592 were added to the mount, lower leg and shoulder bones, added from AMNH 222, and tail bones, added from AMNH 339. To finish the mount, the rest of the tail was fashioned to appear as Marsh believed it should, which meant it had too few vertebrae. In addition,

6240-673: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

6344-451: The fused pubes and ischia . The limb bones were also very robust, with the humerus resembling that of Camarasaurus , and those of B. excelsus being nearly identical to those of Apatosaurus ajax . The humerus had a thin bone shaft and larger transverse ends. Its anterior end bears a large deltopectoral crest , which was on the extremities of the bone. Charles Gilmore in 1936 noted that previous reconstructions erroneously proposed that

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6448-687: The group name. Originally named by its discoverer Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, Brontosaurus had long been considered a junior synonym of Apatosaurus ; its type species, Brontosaurus excelsus , was reclassified as A. excelsus in 1903. However, an extensive study published in 2015 by a joint British-Portuguese research team concluded that Brontosaurus was a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus . Nevertheless, not all paleontologists agree with this division. The same study classified two additional species that had once been considered Apatosaurus and Eobrontosaurus as Brontosaurus parvus and Brontosaurus yahnahpin respectively. Cladogram of

6552-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

6656-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

6760-451: The lateral expansion of unbifurcated neural spines in B. parvus. Its dorsal vertebrae had short centra with large fossae (shallow excavations) on their lateral sides, though not as extensively as the cervicals’. Neural canals, which contain the spinal cord of the vertebral column, are ovate and large in the dorsals. The diapophyses protrude outward and curve downward in a hook-shape. Neural spines are thick in anterior-posterior view with

6864-529: The lateral sides of the vertebrae that attached to cervical ribs) which would point ventrally under the centrum . These parapophyses in conjunction with dense diapophyses and cervical ribs were strong anchors for neck muscles, which could sustain extreme force. The cervicals were also more boxy than in other sauropods due to their truncated zygapophyses and tall build. These vertebrae are triangular in anterior view, whereas they most often are rounded or square in genera like Camarasaurus. Despite its pneumaticy,

6968-479: The longest and largest creatures ever to walk the earth, including Diplodocus , Supersaurus , and Barosaurus . Diplodocids first evolved during the Middle Jurassic in what is now Georgia , spreading to North America during the Late Jurassic. Brontosaurus is classified in the subfamily Apatosaurinae, which also includes Apatosaurus and possibly one or more unnamed genera. Othniel Charles Marsh described Brontosaurus as being allied to Atlantosaurus , within

7072-530: The manus bones vary within Apatosaurinae as well, with B. yahnahpin 's ratio of longest metacarpal to radius length around 0.40 or greater compared to a lower value in Apatosaurus louisae . The femora of Brontosaurus are very stout and represent some of the most robust femora of any member of Sauropoda. The tibia and fibula bones are different from the slender bones of Diplodocus but are nearly indistinguishable from those of Camarasaurus . The fibula

7176-550: The many fossil animals of N. America has afforded the best support to the theory of evolution, which has appeared within the last 20 years" (since Darwin's publication of Origin of Species). Between 1883 and 1895, Marsh was President of the National Academy of Sciences . The pinnacle of Marsh's work with dinosaurs came in 1896 with the publication of his two quartos, Dinosaurs of North America and Vertebrate Fossils, which demonstrated his unsurpassed knowledge of

7280-462: The neck of Brontosaurus is thought to have been double the mass of that of other diplodocids due to the former’s sturdiness. Brontosaurus differs from Apatosaurus in that the base of the posterior dorsal vertebrae's neural spines are longer than they are wide. The cervicals of species within Brontosaurus also vary, such as the lack of tubercules on the neural spines of B. excelsus and

7384-456: The neck were deeply bifurcated on the dorsal side; that is, they carried paired spines, resulting in a wide and deep neck. The spine and tail consisted of 15 cervicals, ten dorsals, five sacrals, and about 82 caudals, based on Apatosaurus . The number of caudal vertebrae has been noted to vary, even within a species. Vertebrae in the neck, torso, and sacrum of sauropods bore large pneumatic foramina on their lateral sides. These are used to lighten

7488-560: The now defunct group Atlantosauridae . In 1878, Marsh raised his family to the rank of suborder, including Apatosaurus , Brontosaurus , Atlantosaurus , Morosaurus (= Camarasaurus ), and Diplodocus . He classified this group within Sauropoda. In 1903, Elmer S. Riggs mentioned that the name Sauropoda would be a junior synonym of earlier names, and grouped Apatosaurus within Opisthocoelia . Most authors still use Sauropoda as

7592-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

7696-404: The only other sauropod of which good skull material was known at the time. The mount construction was overseen by Adam Hermann, who failed to find Brontosaurus skulls. Hermann was forced to sculpt a stand-in skull by hand. Henry Fairfield Osborn noted in a publication that the skull was "largely conjectural and based on that of Morosaurus " (now Camarasaurus ). In 1909, an Apatosaurus skull

7800-501: The original core of the collection of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History . The museum's Great Hall is dominated by the first fossil skeleton of Brontosaurus that he discovered, which was reclassified as Apatosaurus for a time. However, an extensive study published in 2015 concluded that Brontosaurus was a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus . Some other Marsh taxa like Camarasaurus lentus , Nanosaurus agilis , and Camptosaurus dispar are also represented in

7904-472: The other students, he was nicknamed "Daddy" by his peers. He was initially an unremarkable student, devoting much of his time to leisure and games, but the next year decided to focus on his studies. "I changed my mind," he later told a biographer, "during an afternoon spent on Dracut Heights [Lowell]. I resolved that I would return to Andover, take hold, and really study." Marsh applied himself to his studies and graduated valedictorian of his class in 1856. In

8008-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

8112-408: The phalanges, bearing boxy articular ends on its proximal and distal faces. The single front claw bone is slightly curved and squarely shortened on the front end. The phalangeal formula is 2-1-1-1-1, meaning the innermost finger (phalanx) on the forelimb has two bones and the next has one. The single manual claw bone ( ungual ) is slightly curved and squarely truncated on the anterior end. Proportions of

8216-601: The skeleton are shared with A. parvus . The species was placed in Brontosaurus Tschopp et al. in 2015 during their comprehensive study of Diplodocidae . In the 1903 edition of Geological Series of the Field Columbian Museum, Elmer Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was not different enough from Apatosaurus to warrant a separate genus, so he created the new combination Apatosaurus excelsus for it. Riggs stated that "In view of these facts

8320-400: The skull of the closely related Apatosaurus . Several skulls of Apatosaurus have been found, all of which are very small in proportion to the body. Their snouts were squared off and low, in contrast to macronarians' . Jaws of Apatosaurus and other diplodocids were lined with spatulate (chisel-like) teeth which were adapted for herbivory. Like those of other diplodocids , the vertebrae of

8424-435: The smaller B. parvus only got up to 19 m (62 ft) long. Juvenile specimens of Brontosaurus are known, with younger individuals growing rapidly to adult size in as little as 15 years. Brontosaurus has been classified within the family Diplodocidae , which was a group of sauropods that had shorter necks and longer tails compared to other families like brachiosaurs and mamenchisaurs . Diplodocids first evolved in

8528-481: The specimen to Yale. Marsh referred the skull to B. excelsus , later featuring it in a skeletal reconstruction of the B. excelsus type specimen in 1891 and the illustration was featured again in Marsh's landmark publication, The Dinosaurs of North America , in 1896. At the Yale Peabody Museum , the skeleton of Brontosaurus excelsus was mounted in 1931 with a skull based on the Marsh reconstruction of

8632-531: The specimens came from the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation. The species was later transferred to Apatosaurus by several authors In 2008, a nearly complete postcranial skeleton of an apatosaurine was collected in Utah by crews working for Brigham Young University (BYU 1252-18531) where some of the remains are currently on display. The skeleton is undescribed, but many of the features of

8736-474: The status of Brontosaurus is still uncertain, with some paleontologists still considering it a synonym of Apatosaurus . Being from the Morrison Formation, Brontosaurus coexisted with a menagerie of other taxa such as the sauropods Diplodocus, Barosaurus, and Brachiosaurus ; herbivorous ornithischians Stegosaurus , Dryosaurus , and Nanosaurus ; as well as the carnivorous theropods Allosaurus , Marshosaurus and Ceratosaurus . This formation

8840-602: The subject. On December 13, 1897, Marsh received the Cuvier Prize of 1,500 francs from the French Academy of Science . According to Peter Dodson , Cope and Marsh "[have] left a legacy, and each was a distinguished researcher. But really it seems impossible to say one name without the other. Cope and Marsh." Marsh's names for three dinosaur groups, and nineteen genera, have survived, and though only three of Cope's named genera are still in use, he published

8944-597: The summers off of school, he prospected for minerals in New York, Massachusetts, and Nova Scotia. Upon gradation, Marsh decided to attend Yale, rather than Harvard, where many of his relatives had attended. He ran his letter to George Peabody asking for the funds by Aunt Judith first, who disapprovingly noted it contained two spelling errors. Peabody agreed to cover Marsh's expenses and give him an allowance for spending money, and Marsh moved to New Haven in September. Marsh

9048-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

9152-521: The time. Brontosaurus excelsus ' type specimen ( YPM 1980) was one of the most complete sauropod skeletons known at the time, preserving many of the characteristic but fragile cervical vertebrae. Marsh believed that Brontosaurus was a member of the Atlantosauridae , a clade of sauropod dinosaurs he named in 1877 that also included Atlantosaurus and Apatosaurus . A year later in 1880, another partial postcranial Brontosaurus skeleton

9256-479: The two genera may be regarded as synonymous. As the term ' Apatosaurus ' has priority, ' Brontosaurus ' will be regarded as a synonym". Nonetheless, before the mounting of the American Museum of Natural History specimen, Henry Fairfield Osborn chose to label the skeleton " Brontosaurus ", though he was a strong opponent of Marsh and his taxa. In 1905, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) unveiled

9360-491: The two had a contentious relationship. Othniel much preferred excursions in the woods to his chores. Among his childhood influences was Ezekiel Jewett, a former military officer and amateur scientist who influenced Othniel's interest in the sciences. Jewett had been drawn to the area by the fossils unearthed by the enlargement of the Erie Canal , and the two would hunt and prospect for specimens together. By 1847, Othniel

9464-415: The world, studying anatomy , mineralogy and geology . He obtained a teaching position at Yale upon his return. From the 1870s to 1890s, he competed with rival paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in a period of frenzied Western American expeditions known as the Bone Wars . Marsh's greatest legacy is the collection of Mesozoic reptiles, Cretaceous birds, and Mesozoic and Tertiary mammals that now constitute

9568-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

9672-467: Was a good student, but not a thrifty one; Aunt Judith, who was in charge of monitoring Marsh while Peabody was in Europe, regularly upbraided her nephew for his lax accounting habits and large expenses. Marsh graduated eighth in his class, using a scholarship he won for the best examination in Greek to finance a masters degree from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School , as he developed an interest in becoming

9776-555: Was a hotspot of sauropod biodiversity, with over 16 recognized genera, which resulted in niche partitioning between different sauropods. The discovery of a large and fairly complete sauropod skeleton was announced in 1879 by Othniel Charles Marsh , a professor of paleontology at Yale University . The specimen was collected from Morrison Formation rocks at Como Bluff , Wyoming by William Harlow Reed . He identified it as belonging to an entirely new genus and species, which he named Brontosaurus excelsus , meaning "thunder lizard", from

9880-432: Was able to keep discovery teams in the field almost continuously from 1870 until his death. The material recovered in his 30 years of collection was simply astonishing to the scientific community. At the Peabody Museum, Marsh was the first to create skeletal displays of dinosaurs, which are now common in countless museums of natural history. Marsh biographer Mark J. McCarren summed it up this way, Marsh's "contributions to

9984-660: Was attending school at the Wilson Collegiate Institute , and later attended the Lockport Union School. Othniel was undecided as to what he would do for a living, but the course of his future was dramatically changed due to the intervention of his uncle George Peabody , who was a successful banker. With Peabody's financial assistance (spurred by Marsh's aunt, Judith), Marsh enrolled in Phillips Academy in 1851. Older than most of

10088-408: Was collected near Como Bluff by Reed, including well-preserved limb elements. Marsh named this second skeleton Brontosaurus amplus ("large thunder lizard") in 1881, but it was considered a synonym of B. excelsus in 2015 . In August 1883, Marshall P. Felch collected a disarticulated partial skull (USNM V 5730) of a sauropod further south in the Felch Quarry at Garden Park , Colorado and sent

10192-407: Was considered a junior synonym and was therefore discarded from formal use. Despite this, at least one paleontologist—Robert T. Bakker—argued in the 1990s that A. ajax and A. excelsus are sufficiently distinct that the latter continues to merit a separate genus. In 2015, an extensive study of diplodocid relationships by Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus, and Roger Benson concluded that Brontosaurus

10296-416: Was falsely theorized to possibly have possessed a Camarasaurus -like skull, based on a disarticulated Camarasaurus -like tooth found at the precise site where an Apatosaurus specimen was found years before. However, this tooth does not come from Apatosaurus . On October 20, 1979, after the publications by McIntosh and Berman, the first skull of an Apatosaurus was mounted on a skeleton in a museum, that of

10400-663: Was found, during the first expedition to what would become the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument , led by Earl Douglass. The skull was found a few meters away from a skeleton (specimen CM 3018) identified as the new species Apatosaurus louisae . The skull was designated CM 11162 and was very similar to the skull of Diplodocus . It was accepted as belonging to the Apatosaurus specimen by Douglass and Carnegie Museum director William J. Holland , although other scientists, most notably Osborn, rejected this identification. Holland defended his view in 1914 in an address to

10504-417: Was indeed a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus . The scientists developed a statistical method to more objectively assess differences between fossil genera and species and concluded that Brontosaurus could be "resurrected" as a valid name. They assigned two former Apatosaurus species, A. parvus, and A. yahnahpin , to Brontosaurus , as well as the type species B. excelsus . The publication

10608-579: Was mentioned in the literature until the 1970s when John Stanton McIntosh and David Berman redescribed the skulls of Diplodocus and Apatosaurus in 1975. They found that though he never published his opinion, Holland was almost certainly correct in that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus had a Diplodocus -like skull. According to them, many skulls long thought to belong to Diplodocus might instead be those of Apatosaurus . They reassigned multiple skulls to Apatosaurus based on associated and closely associated vertebrae. Though they supported Holland, Apatosaurus

10712-403: Was met with some criticism from other paleontologists, including Michael D'Emic, Donald Prothero , who criticized the mass media reaction to this study as superficial and premature, and many others below . Some paleontologists, such as John and Rebecca Foster , continue to consider Brontosaurus as a synonym of Apatosaurus . Brontosaurus was a large, long-necked, quadrupedal animal with

10816-527: Was the direct predecessor to Brontosaurus, although Tschopp et al .'s phylogenetic analysis placed B. yahnahpin as the basalmost species of Brontosaurus. Almost all 20th-century paleontologists agreed with Riggs that all Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus species should be classified in a single genus. According to the rules of the ICZN , which governs the scientific names of animals, the name Apatosaurus , having been published first, had priority; Brontosaurus

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