Outline: a typical sauropod
Dicraeosaurus
die-KREE-oh-SORE-us
"forked lizard"
- Lived
- 152 to 143 million years ago, Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 20 m (66 ft)
- Group
- Sauropods, Dicraeosauridae
- Found in
- Tanzania
- Named by
- Janensch 1914
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical sauropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
150 million years ago
Also reported from Zimbabwe.
Field notes
About Dicraeosaurus
What it was like
Dicraeosaurus was a smallish sauropod with a short neck for its kind, and tall, forked spines rising from its neck and back bones. Those spines may have supported a ridge along its neck.
It probably fed on low plants and was a relative of Amargasaurus, which had even longer spines.
Its world
It lived in the Late Jurassic in what is now Tanzania, in eastern Africa. Its bones come from the rich Tendaguru beds, where it shared the land with the much larger long-necked Giraffatitan, the spiky stegosaur Kentrosaurus and the slender hunter Elaphrosaurus.
How it was found
Janensch named Dicraeosaurus in 1914. With 19 finds, it is one of the best known dinosaurs from Africa.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Dicraeosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: W. Janensch. 1914. Übersicht über die Wirbeltierfauna der Tendaguru-Schichten [Overview of the vertebrate fauna of the Tendaguru beds]. Archiv für Biontologie 3:81-110