DIPLODOCUS
a plant-eating diplodocine sauropod dinosaur from the late Jurassic of North America.
Pronunciation: di-PLOD-uh-kus
Meaning: Double Beam
Author/s: Marsh (
1878)
Synonyms: Seismosaurus
First Discovery: Colorado, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #55
Diplodocus longus
Etymology
Diplodocus is derived from the Greek "diploos" (double) and "dokos" (beam), in reference to the double-beamed bones (chevrons) on the underside of its tail. This feature was once thought to be unique to
Diplodocus but has since been discovered in other sauropods.
The
species epithet,
longus, means "long, extended" in Latin.
Discovery
The first remains of
Diplodocus were discovered at "Felch Quarry 1" in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, near Cañon City, Fremont County, Colorado, by Benjamin Franklin Mudge in mid-August, 1877. They were excavated by Mudge, Samuel Wendell Williston and Marshall Parker Felch later that month.
The
holotype (YPM 1920) is a partial, skulless skeleton.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Jurassic
Stage: Kimmeridgian
Age range: 156-151 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 25 meters
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: 21 tons
Diet: Herbivore
Other species
Diplodocus hallorum ("for Jim and Ruth Hall") is based on remains (NMMNH P-3690) from what is now known as "Seismosaurus Quarry I" (NMMNH locality L-344 ) in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, Sandoval County, New Mexico, that were named
Seismosaurus halli by David Gillette in 1991. The epithet was corrected from
halli to
hallorum by George Olshevsky, who realised that it honoured two individuals—Jim and Ruth Hall—and, under the ICZN, such a dedication requires the genitive plural -
orum, which was universally accepted.
When this species was officially moved to
Diplodocus in 2006, it took the largest touchable* diplodocid remains with it (*see
Amphicoelias).
It may simply be a super-large specimen of
Diplodocus longus.
Diplodocus hayi ("for Prof. O.P. Hay") was named by William Jacob Holland in 1924 for a partial skeleton (HMNS 175) discovered by William H. Utterback at Red Fork Powder River Quarry A in the Morrison Formation, near Sheridan, Johnson County, Wyoming, in 1902.
It was renamed
Galeamopus by Tschopp
et al. in 2015.
Diplodocus carnegii ("for Andrew Carnegie") is based on CM 84, found at Carnegie Quarry D (Sheep Creek) in the Upper Morrison Formation at Cañon City, Fremont County, Colorado, by Jacob Wortman. This is the best known specimen of
Diplodocus because, well, it's the best known specimen of
Diplodocus, remains-wise. In 2016, Tschopp and Mateus proposed that
Diplodocus carnegii should replace
Diplodocus longus as the
Diplodocus type species and name-bearer, due to its superior fossils. As it turns out,
Diplodocus longus wasn't as poorly represented as initially thought, but its fossils, collected between 1883 and 1901 from a single quarry, were spread across several institutions rather than being housed in one place. The proposal was rejected by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
Diplodocus lacustris ("of the Lake") is based on YPM 1922: an upper and lower jawbone and slender teeth, found at Lakes Quarry 5 (aka Beckwith Quarry, Dinosaur Ridge) in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, Jefferson County, Colorado. Marsh originally referred the teeth to
Stegosaurus armatus in 1877, but having discovered
Apatosaurus jaw bones in the same quarry in 2013, Mossbrucker and Bakker proposed that the teeth might belong to the same individual. Two years later, Tschopp
et al. identified the jaw bones as the propoerty of
Camarasaurus and the teeth as belonging to an indeterminate diplodocid, rendering
Diplodocus lacustris a nomen dubium (dubious name). Confusingly, a
Diplodocus sp. was also catalogued as YPM 1922 before it was transferred to the Smithsonian under specimen number USNM 2673, but it can't be from the same individual because it was found in a different quarry!
References
• Marsh OC (1877) "
A new order of extinct Reptilia (Stegosauria) from the Jurassic of the Rocky Mountains".
American Journal of Science, s3(14): 34-35.
• Marsh OC (1878) "Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part I".
American Journal of Science and Arts, s3-16(95): 411-416. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s3-16.95.411. [1. Coins Diplodocus.] [2. "This species, when described by the writer, was referred provisionally to the genus Apatosaurus".]
• Marsh OC (1884) "Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VII. On the Diplodocidae, a new family of the Sauropoda".
American Journal of Science, s3-27(158): 161-167. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s3-27.158.161. ["This series of
teeth was found with the remains of Stegosaurus, and hence
was at first referred to that genus ... ]
• Hatcher JB (1901) "
Diplodocus Marsh, Its Osteology, Taxonomy, and Probable Habits, with a Restoration of the Skeleton".
Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, 1(1).
• Holland WJ (1910) "A Review of Some Recent Criticisms of the Restorations of Sauropod Dinosaurs Existing in the Museums of the United States, with Special Reference to that of
Diplodocus carnegii in the Carnegie Museum".
The American Naturalist, 44(521): 259-283. DOI: 10.1086/279138.
• Holland WJ (1924) "
The skull of Diplodocus".
Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, 9: 378-403.
• Gillette DD (1991) "
Seismosaurus halli, gen. et sp. nov., a new sauropod dinosaur from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous) of New Mexico, USA".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 11: 417-433.
• Czerkas S A (1993) "Discovery of dermal spines reveals a new look for sauropod dinosaurs". Geology, 20(12): 1068-1070.
DOI: 10.1130/0091-7613(1992)020<1068:DODSRA>2.3.CO;2.
Myhrvold N and Currie PJ (1997) "Supersonic sauropods? Tail dynamics in the diplodocids".
Paleobiology, 23(4): 393-409. DOI: 10.1017/S0094837300019801.
• McIntosh JS and Carpenter K (1998) "
The holotype of Diplodocus longus, with comments on other specimens of the genus".
Modern Geology, 23: 85-110.
• Gillette DD and Hallett M (1999) "
Seismosaurus: the earth shaker".
• Upchurch P, Barrett PM and Dodson P (2004) "Sauropoda". Page 259-322 in Weishampel, Dodson and Osmólska (eds.) "
The Dinosauria: Second Edition".
• Lucas S, Herne M, Heckert A, Hunt A and Sullivan R (2004) "Reappraisal of
Seismosaurus, A Late Jurassic Sauropod Dinosaur from New Mexico".
The Geological Society of America, 2004 Denver Annual Meeting.
• McIntosh JS (2005) "The Genus
Barosaurus Marsh". In Carpenter and Tidswell (eds.) "
Thunder Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs".
• Herne MC and Lucas SG (2006) "
Seismosaurus hallorum: osteological reconstruction
from the holotype".
Bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 36,: 139–148.
• Lucas SG, Spielman JA, Rinehart LA, Heckert AB, Herne MC, Hunt AP, Foster JR and Sullivan RM (2006) "Taxonomic status of
Seismosaurus hallorum, a Late Jurassic sauropod dinosaur from New Mexico. Page 149-162 in Foster and Lucas (eds.) "Paleontology and geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation".
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin #36.
• Whitlock JA, Wilson JA and Lamanna MC (March 2010) "Description of a Nearly Complete Juvenile Skull of
Diplodocus (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea) from the Late Jurassic of North America".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30(2): 442-457. DOI: 10.1080/02724631003617647
• Mossbrucker MT and Bakker RT (2013) "Missing muzzle found: new skull material referrable to Apatosaurus ajax (Marsh 1877) from the Morrison Formation of Morrison, Colorado.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 45: 111.
• Tschopp E, Mateus OV and Benson RBJ (2015) "A specimen-level phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda)".
PeerJ, 3: e857. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.857.
• Paul GS (2016) "
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs: Second Edition".
• Tschopp E and Mateus O (2016) "Case 3700:
Diplodocus Marsh, 1878 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda): proposed designation of
D. carnegii Hatcher, 1901 as the type species".
The Bulletin of zoological nomenclature, 73(1): 17-24. DOI: 10.21805/bzn.v73i1.a22.
• Tschopp E, Brinkman D, Henderson J, Turner M and Mateus O (2018) "Considerations on the replacement of a type species in the case of the sauropod dinosaur
Diplodocus Marsh, 1878".
Geology of the Intermountain West, 5: 245-262.
• ICZN (2018) "Opinion 2425 (Case 3700) -
Diplodocus Marsh, 1878 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda):
Diplodocus longus Marsh, 1878 maintained as the type species".
Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 75(1): 285-287. DOI: 10.21805/bzn.v75.a062.
• Gallagher T, Poole J and Schein JP (2021) "Evidence of integumentary scale diversity in the late Jurassic Sauropod Diplodocus sp. from the Mother’s Day Quarry, Montana".
PeerJ, 9: e11202. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.11202.
• Price JR and Whitlock JA (2022) "Dental histology of
Diplodocus (Sauropoda, Diplodocoidea)".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: e2099745.
DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2022.2099745.
• Taylor MP, Sroka SD and Carpenter K (2023) "The Concrete
Diplodocus of Vernal — a Cultural Icon of Utah".
Geology of the Intermountain West, 10: 65-91. DOI: 10.31711/giw.v10.pp65-91.
• Woodruff DC, Curtice BD and Foster JR (2024) "Seis-ing up the Super-Morrison formation sauropods".
Journal of Anatomy, 247(3–4): 682-698. DOI: 10.1111/joa.14108.
• Gallagher T, Folkes D, Pittman M, Kaye TG, Storrs GW and Schein JP (2025) "Fossilized melanosomes reveal colour patterning of a sauropod dinosaur".
Royal Society Open Science, 12(12): 251232.
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.251232.
• Taylor MP, Henrici AC, Church LJ, Nieuwland I and Lamanna MC (2025) "
The History and Composition of the Carnegie Diplodocus".
Annals of Carnegie Museum, 91(1): 55-91. DOI: 10.2992/007.091.0104.
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