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CAMARASAURUS

a plant-eating macronarian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America.
camarasaurus.png
Pronunciation: KAM-ar-a-SOR-us
Meaning: Chambered lizard
Author/s: Cope (1877)
Synonyms: See below
First Discovery: Colorado, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #49

Camarasaurus supremus

The Morrison Formation — a dinosaur-rich stretch of Late Jurassic rock along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains — has yielded a hatful of sauropods. But none has been as abundant and complete as Camarasaurus; the most common North American sauropod ever found and the only one for which all parts of the skeleton are known.
Etymology
Camarasaurus is derived from the Greek "kamara" (chamber) and "sauros" (lizard), in reference to the hollow chambers in its vertebrae which, according to E.D. Cope, were "lighter in proportion to their bulk than in any air-breathing vertebrate."
The species epithet, supremus, means "largest" in Latin.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Jurassic
Stage: Kimmeridgian
Age range: 156-151 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 18 meters
Est. max. hip height: 5 meters
Est. max. weight: 14 tons
Diet: Herbivore
Other Species
Camarasaurus grandis
Camarasaurus lentus
Camarasaurus lewisi: Cathetosaurus lewisi — from the Greek "kathetos" (perpendicular) and "saurus" (lizard), for its presumed ability to stand erect on its hind legs, and for Arnold David Lewis of the Harvard Museum of Natural History — was named by Jensen in 1988 but was assigned to Camarasaurus as Camarasaurus lewisi by McIntosh eight years later. In 2013, Mateus and Tschopp described a virtually complete second specimen from Wyoming's Howe-Stephens Quarry that had fewer features in common with Camarasaurus than it did with Cathetosaurus, so the latter appears to be a valid critter afterall. The holotype, catalogued as BYU 9047, was discovered by Vivian and Daniel Jones in Pit 1 of the Dominguez-Jones Quarry in the Brushy Basin Member of Colorado's Morrison Formation.
"Camarasaurus" agilis was originally named Morosaurus agilis by OC Marsh in 1889. When Osborn and Mook formalized the opinions of Osborn (1898), Riggs (1902) and Mook (1914) and sunk Morosaurus as a synonym of Camarasaurus in 1919, it was assumed that all known species went with it. However, Gilmore had already stated unequivocally in 1907 that Morosaurus agilis did not belong to Camarasaurus, and so it hung around like a bad smell for more than a century. It was renamed Smitanosaurus and reclassified as a dicraeosaurid by Whitlock and Wilson in 2020. The holotype, catalogued as USNM 5384, was discovered at Felch Quarry 1 in the Morrison Formation, near Cañon City, Colorado, in June of 1883.
Camarasaurus becklesii was originally named Pelorosaurus becklesii by Gideon Mantell in 1842. It was moved to Morosaurus by Marsh in 1889 and to Camarasaurus by von Huene in 1932, then renamed Haestasaurus by Upchurch et al. in 2015. The holotype, cataloged as NHMUK R1870, was discovered in the Hastings Beds on the Isle of Wight.
Camarasaurus alenquerensis was originally named Apatosaurus alenquerensis by Albert-Félix de Lapparent and Georges Zbyweski in 1957. It was assigned to Camarasaurus by McIntosh in 1990 then referred to Lourinhasaurus by Dantes et al. in 1998. In 2003, it became the lectotype of Lourinhasaurus alenquerensis as the initial holotype was renamed Dinheirosaurus lourinhanensis.
Synonyms
Camarasaurus supremus:
Amphicoelias latus (Cope, 1877)
Camarasaurus leptodirus (Cope, 1879)
Caulodon diversidens (Cope, 1877)
Caulodon leptoganus (Cope, 1878)
Camarasaurus grandis:
Apatosaurus grandis (Marsh, 1877)
Camarasaurus impar (Marsh, 1878)
Camarasaurus robustus (Marsh, 1878)
Morosaurus impar (Marsh, 1878)
Morosaurus robustus (Marsh, 1878)
Astrodon montanus (Marsh, 1896)
Pleurocoelus montanus (Marsh, 1896)
Camarasaurus lentus:
Camarasaurus annae (Ellinger, 1950)
Uintasaurus douglassi (Holland, 1919)
Camarasaurus agilis:
Morosaurus agilis (Marsh, 1889)
References
• Marsh OC (1877) "Apatosaurus grandis" in "Notice of new dinosaurian reptiles from the Jurassic formation". American Journal of Science, 1st December 1877, issue 84, pages 514-516.
• Marsh OC (1889) "Morosaurus lentus" in "Notice of new American Dinosauria".
The American Journal of Science, April 1889, series 3, vol. 37, pages 331-336.
• Cope ED (August 23, 1877) "On a Gigantic Saurian from the Dakota Epoch of Colorado". Palaeontological bulletin, 25: 5-10.
• Gilmore CW (1907) "The type of the Jurassic reptile Morosaurus agilis redescribed, with a note on Camptosaurus". Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 32: 151–165.
• Osborn HF and CC Mook (1919) "Characters and Restoration of the Sauropod Genus Camarasaurus Cope. From Type Material in the Cope Collection in the American Museum of Natural History". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 58(6): 386-396.
• Osborn HF and Mook CC (Jan. 1921) " Camarasaurus, Amphicoelias, and other sauropods of Cope". Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History (vol. 3).
• Jensen JA (1988) "A fourth new sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of the Colorado Plateau and sauropod bipedalism". Great Basin Naturalist, 48(2): 121–145. [names Cathetosaurus.]
• McIntosh JS, Miller WE, Stadtman KL and Gillette DD (1995) "Osteology of Camarasaurus lewisi (Jensen, 1988)". Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 41: 73-116.
• Tanke DH and Carpenter K (2001) "Mesozoic Vertebrate Life".
• Ikejiri T (2005) "Distribution and biochronology of Camarasaurus (Dinosaria, Sauropoda) from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of the Rocky Mountain Region". New Mexico Geological Society, 56th Field Conference Guidebook, Geology of the Chama Basin. DOI: 10.56577/FFC-56.367.
• Curry Rogers K and Wilson JA (2005) "The Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology".
• Wings O and Sander MP (2007) "No gastric mill in sauropod dinosaurs: new evidence from analysis of gastrolith mass and function in ostriches". Proc Biol Sci; 274(1610): 635-640.
• Foster J (2007) "Jurassic West: Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and their World".
• Mateus O and Tschopp E (2013) "Cathetosaurus as a valid sauropod genus and comparisons with Camarasaurus". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2013. 173.
• Tschopp E, Mateus O and Benson RB (2015) "A specimen-level phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda)". PeerJ, 3: e857. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.857.
• Button DJ, Barrett PM and Rayfield EJ (2016) "Comparative cranial myology and biomechanics of Plateosaurus and Camarasaurus and evolution of the sauropod feeding apparatus". Palaeontology, 59: 887-913. DOI: 10.1111/pala.12266.
• Wiersma K and Sander PM (2016) "The dentition of a well-preserved specimen of Camarasaurus sp.: implications for function, tooth replacement, soft part reconstruction, and food intake". Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 91: 145–161. DOI: 10.1007/s12542-016-0332-6.
• Woodruff DC, Wilhite DR, Larson PL and Eads M (2021) "A new specimen of the basal macronarian Camarasaurus (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) highlights variability and cranial allometry within the genus". Volumina Jurassica 19: 109-130. DOI: 10.7306/VJ.19.5.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L. "CAMARASAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
›. Web access: 07th Mar 2026.
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