How big was Brachiosaurus altithorax? I mean, really?
June 2, 2014
I’m currently writing a popular guide to dinosaurs, to be published by Random House next autumn [Ed.: available now at amazon.com and at amazon.co.uk]. I’ve been writing about [Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan], and have read your 2009 study vindicating the proposal to separate them into two genera.[…]I know you consider Brachiosaurus likely to have been bigger (and note that the specimen was not fully grown), with a longer trunk and tail – but most of the sources I can find give both animals the same body length, generally around 26m. Presumably this doesn’t reflect your work, and your calculations are different.
I replied at the time, and said that I’d post that response here on SV-POW!. But one thing and another prevented me from getting around to it, and I forgot all about it until recently. Since we’re currently in a sequence of Brachiosaurus-themed posts [part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6], this seems like a good time to fix that. So here is my response, fresh from November 2011, lightly edited.
Well, Giraffatitan has only been recognised as a separate animal at all in the last couple of years, and nearly everything that has been written about “Brachiosaurus“, at least in the technical literature, is actually about Giraffatitan. So existing sources that give the same length for both are probably not making a meaningful distinction between the two animals.
First, on Giraffatitan: Janensch (1950b:102) did a great job of measuring his composite mounted skeleton. His figure for the total length of Giraffatitan along the neural canal is 22.46 m, and is certainly the best estimate in the literature for an actual brachiosaur specimen (and quite possibly the best for any sauropod).
I don’t know where the figure of 26 m comes from, but as Janensch (1961:213) notes, the isolated fibula XV2 of Giraffatitan in the Berlin collection is 134 cm long, compared with 119 cm for that of the mounted skeleton. This is 1.126 times as long, which if scaled isometrically would yield a total length of 25.29 m. So that is defensible, but 26 m is not, really.
I would advise sticking with Janensch’s published figure of 22.46 m, as it’s based on good material, and also because it forms the basis of my comparative estimate for a Brachiosaurus of similar limb length.
Now in my 2009 paper I estimated with reasonable rigour that the torso of Brachiosaurus was probably about 23% longer than that of Giraffatitan, yielding 4.82 m rather than 3.92 that Janensch gave for Giraffatitan. On much less solid evidence, I tentatively estimated that the tail of Brachiosaurus might have been 20-25% longer than that of Giraffatitan. Given the paucity of evidence I would play safer by going with the lower end of that estimate, which would give a tail length of 9.14 m compared with Janensch’s 7.62 for Giraffatitan. Riggs (1904) tells us that the sacrum of Brachiosaurus is 0.95 m long, which is slightly less than 1.07 m for Giraffatitan. Finally, since we know nothing of the head and neck of Brachiosaurus, the null hypothesis has to be that they were similar in proportion to those of Giraffatitan.
Putting it all together, Brachiosaurus may have been longer in the torso by 0.9 m, and in the tail by 1.52 m, but shorter in the sacrum by 0.12 m — for a total additional length of 2.3 m. That would make Brachiosaurus 24.76 m long, which is 10% longer than Giraffatitan.
Note that all the Brachiosaurus figures are given with much greater precision than the sparse data we have really allows. I think you could round Janensch’s 22.46 m for Giraffatitan to 22.5 and be pretty confident in that number, but you shouldn’t really say anything more precise than “maybe about 25 m” for Brachiosaurus.
Finally, you correctly note that the Brachiosaurus specimen was not fully grown — we can tell because its coracoid was not fused to the scapula. But the same is true of the mounted Giraffatitan, so these two very similarly sized animals were both subadult. How much bigger did they get? We know from the fibula that Giraffatitan got at least 12-13% bigger than the well-known specimen, and I’d be pretty happy guessing the same about Brachiosaurus. And I wouldn’t rule out much bigger specimens, either.
References
- Janensch, Werner. 1950b. Die Skelettrekonstruktion von Brachiosaurus brancai. Palaeontographica (Supplement 7) 3:97-103, and plates VI-VIII. [English translation]
- Janensch, Werner. 1961. Die Gliedmaszen und Gliedmaszengurtel der Sauropoden der Tendaguru-Schichten. Palaeontographica, suppl. 7 (1), teil 3, lief. 4:177-235.
- Taylor, Michael P. 2009. A re-evaluation of Brachiosaurus altithorax Riggs 1903 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) and its generic separation from Giraffatitan brancai (Janensch 1914). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(3):787-806.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
June 2, 2014 at 12:22 pm
Could it be that the 26 m estimate is taking into account the subadult status of the specimens? If scaled even modestly for an extra 10% to reach adult size, that easily puts the length at around 26 m, even going near 28 m according to your figures (past 28 m if using your 12-13% increase). If it is, then 26 m is a fairly conservative estimate.
June 2, 2014 at 12:31 pm
Yes, I guess something like that might be going on. But, really, who knows where these numbers come from? For many years I “knew” that Diplodocus carnegii CM 84 was 27 m long. Then I read Hatcher (1901:39) and found that it’s only 68 feet = 20.7 m. That’s not a trivial difference — the “well-known” figure of 27 m is 30% longer than the true length. So where did it come from? Was it just a transcription error from the 20.7 m of Hatcher? Possibly not,as he gives no metric measurement. Did it get scribbled hurriedly down in the manuscript of a kids’ book, then religiously copied into subsequent books?
June 2, 2014 at 12:33 pm
By the way, this means that one of the things everyone “knows” about sauropods — that Diplodocus was longer but lighter than “Brachiosaurus” (= Giraffatitan) is wrong. At 22.46 m, Janensch’s beast is 1.76 m longer than Hatcher’s; and Riggs’s would have been even longer.
June 2, 2014 at 1:57 pm
How long is the USNM Diplodocus?
June 2, 2014 at 2:00 pm
I don’t know how long the mount is — but then like so many, it’s really made up of bits and pieces, so it wouldn’t tell you anything very concrete even if you could measure it. Osborne’s (1889) description says that all the material they have is neural arches of the last eight dorsals, the sacrum and pelvis, and most (not all) of the tail. (This is the same specimen, right?)
June 2, 2014 at 4:22 pm
It’s exciting that lack of fusion of appendicular elements supports a ‘subadult’ age for both of them. I’m aware that Wilhite (2005 in Thunder-lizards) on Camarasaurus, Schwarz et al. (2007) on a juvy diplodocid/now brachiosaurid, and Martin (1994) on hatchlings of Phuwiangosaurus each mention that bisection of the scapulocoracoid articulation by the coracoid foramen is a juvenile feature. Are there other references that mention this or identify this feature in other sauropods?
June 2, 2014 at 4:45 pm
Gilmore 1932 says the USNM Diplodocus is 70 ft 2 in/21.4 m, but I believe he also says it’s shorter than the Carnegie mount.
June 2, 2014 at 4:46 pm
I don’t know of other references on this; in fact I wouldn’t have been able to reel off the ones you just mentioned.
What’s more interesting still — we touched on this in our neural-spine bifurcation paper but haven’t really given it the emphasis it deserves — is that various different indications of skeletal maturity indicate that very few of the well-known sauropod specimens are fully mature.
NOTE TO SELF (and to Matt): must blog about this.
June 2, 2014 at 5:34 pm
Ah yes, of course — the Gilmore paper is the one to look at. Thanks for that.
Gilmore’s Plate 6 shows the mounted skeletons of both the Carnegie and USNM specimens — presumably to the same scale, though the caption only says “both are about 1/20 natural size”. The USNM specimen is longer.
But on page 10, he writes:
I wish Gilmore had given a reference for that 84+1/2-foot measurement of the Carnegie specimen, which is nearly a full quarter longer than reported by Hatcher. It’s equivalent to 25.75 m, which is still not as long as the widely quoted 27 m.
Strange, too, that the Carnegie specimen, with limbs the same length as those of the USNM specimen, should be as much as 20% longer. Even allow for four missing caudals, that’s a lot of additional length in the individual vertebrae. Maybe this is a legitimate species distinction?
June 3, 2014 at 3:02 am
Mike, I’m pretty sure that most of the (admittedly awful) dinosaur books that I had as a kid gave an amazingly accurate 87½ feet as the length for Diplodocus (specimen and/or species not specified). This is 27m, rounded to the nearest metre but I can’t help with where this figure might have originated (I had assumed that it was the length of the Carnegie-sponsored mount, although measured “along the curve” to give a more impressive length).
For reference, IIRC, “Brontosaurus” was given as 78 ft, Brachiosaurus (Giraffatitan?) as 74 ft, and a certain over-exposed theropod as 43 ft.
June 3, 2014 at 3:39 am
I think a source of discrepancy regarding the length of CM 84 is how many caudals Hatcher (1901) thought there were, between 35 and 40 according to page 37, looking at modern skeletals like that of Scott Hartman, counting up to 40 caudals excludes all of the “whip” and a bit more, about 5m.
June 3, 2014 at 6:52 am
Mark, strange that your book is spot on with regards to “Brachiosaurus” (= Giraffatitan): Janensch’s 22.46 meters is 73 feet, eight inches, so the four-inch discrepancy is noise. Yet it has the standard inflated Diplodocus length, and an unsupportable 23.75 m for Apatosaurus. I can only ascribe this to Chinese Whispers.
MBR, you’re no doubt right that the extra length of the Carnegie Diplodocus is due to missing whiplash caudals. Yet Hatcher’s (1901) Plate XIII still shows a pretty long tail. It’s hard to believe that they legitimately added a whole nother quarter to its length.
Strange. This mystery might have to be promoted to its own post.
June 3, 2014 at 7:15 am
[…] our Brachiosaurus series [part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7], here is another historically important photo scanned from the Glut encyclopaedia: this time, from […]
July 22, 2020 at 2:25 pm
I think it should be noted that this likely doesn’t go NEARLY enough into how big B. altithorax (or Brachiosaurus at least) may have gotten.
I can elaborate more if needed but I know a way to get one Brachiosaurus specimen >30.7 meters long and 69.5 tonnes.
July 22, 2020 at 2:31 pm
By all means! Please, enlighten us! No-one would be more delighted by a 70-tonne brachiosaur than me.
July 22, 2020 at 3:02 pm
First of all, there is a GDI of FMNH P 25107 (https://i.imgur.com/fXtJHJs.png) that gives about 45.4 tonnes with a density of 0.9 as well as 5% extra meat added to the somewhat emaciated dorsal view.
But – as you already know – that’s not the biggest specimen; USNM 21903/Potter Creek brachiosaur, in this chart by Bricksmashtv (https://i.imgur.com/hCNUTyD.png) is about 13.88% larger linearly than the holotype by my measurement (well within your predicament for larger specimens).
45.4 x 1.1388^3=67 tonnes. The Brachiosaurus holotype is also about 23.8 meters long by my measurement, so this’d be a 27.1 meter, 67 tonne animal with no tweaking.
Applying neck allometry (the neck is 9.2 meters long in the holotype by my measurement, to an extrapolated 10.48 in the larger specimen) gives us a 14.15 meter neck, and thus 3.67 extra meters of length. This also adds about 2.5 tonnes extra mass (5341.7 x 1.1388^3×1.35×0.9),
All in all, this gives us essentially a 30.77 meter, 70 tonne Brachiosaurus.
July 22, 2020 at 3:13 pm
That’s a nice idea; but, sadly, no. The USMN 21903 humerus (until recently on public display at the Smithsonian) measures in the region of 213 cm (Taylor 2009:788) or 206 cm (D’Emic and Carrano 2019:23). The preserved length of the humerus from the holotype FMNH P25107 is 204 cm, and Matt and I estimated (Taylor 2009:796) that about 12 cm had probably eroded away, giving a total intact length around 216 cm. Putting all those estimates together, it’s apparent that Potter Creek individual is about the same size as the holotype.
July 22, 2020 at 3:22 pm
Oh, my bad. What you actually caught there was an error of my confusing USNM 21903 with Jensen’s giant 1987 material (they’re not from the same specimen as far as I know, but that was from the days of USNM 21903 being >227 cm and the author may have assumed to composite them due to a presumably similar size class).
If Jensen’s postcrania gets downsized too, at least we have the big pes specimen.
On humerus length, for some reason, Paleo King says 203 cm is an appropriate size for the holotype humerus by his restoration (not sure how he got it but he does know what he’s doing so I think I can trust him).
So I guess on the size of USNM specifically, YMMV depending on whose recon of the holotype you trust?
July 22, 2020 at 3:37 pm
Sadly, Jensen’s “giant 1987 material” is pretty indeterminate. If it’s a brachiosaur (not certain), and if Jensen’s plaster reconstruction is right (maybe, who knows?) and if Matt’s comparisons are right (likely) then it does come out a bit bigger than the holotype, but not by a whole bunch — maybe 8%. Matt wrote about this in detail.
Regarding holotype reconstructions, I would be inclined to trust Matt and myself more than Nima.
July 22, 2020 at 3:38 pm
(Why do I say the possible 8% length difference is not all that big a deal? Because we already know from the much better preserved Giraffatitan fibula HMN XV2 that brachiosaurus got at least 13% bigger than the big mounted Berlin specimen.)
July 22, 2020 at 3:43 pm
Oh goody, a potential 2.2 meter Brachiosaurus femur!
By Jensen’s 1987 material, I didn’t mean that femur (which I in fact hadn’t known about until you linked it), but rather some assorted postcrania that included among other things, a radius, ilium, and rib fragments.
I believe the paper is Jensen, J. A. 1987: New brachiosaur material from the Late Jurassic of Utah and
Colorado.
Not sure whether or not this was downsized like the USNM humerus was but I’ve heard it’s supposedly pretty big.
July 22, 2020 at 3:52 pm
Yep, the 1987 paper describes (briefly, and sketchily) a few elements. I would not really trust any of them that I had not seen myself: Jensen had many fine qualities, but a restrained hand with the restoring plaster was not among them.
July 22, 2020 at 4:06 pm
Oh dear. Poor restoration in plaster can really muck up sauropod study.
Well for some reason Bricksmashtv seems to have trusted it, and they’re fairly knowledgeable on sauropods AFAIK, so there’s probably at least 1 complete element there that’s bigger than the holotype by >13%.
But heck, if it turns out to be bunk this doesn’t mean we have to kiss supergiant brachiosaurs goodbye – there’s still the similar sized pes, as well as the potential giant femur.
December 17, 2020 at 4:56 am
[…] belong to its own genus, reclassifying it as Giraffatitan brancai. Taylor later estimated that B. altithorax was about 82 feet (25 meters) long, though the dinosaur may be even larger than this, as the fossils of both G. brancai and B. […]
August 17, 2022 at 6:23 am
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