40 Fun Facts About Diplodocus

A 1992 study proposed that giants like Diplodocus had simple extra versions of which organ in their necks?

Hearts, in a chain: each simple pump would pass blood up to the next. Without them, the study reckoned, the main one would need to weigh 1.6 tons.

In 2017, which animal's skeleton replaced Dippy the Diplodocus in the main hall of London's Natural History Museum?

Blue whale bones 25 metres long, nicknamed Hope, now fill the hall. The young whale had stranded on a sandbank in Ireland in 1891.

The long, tapering tail of Diplodocus has often been compared by scientists to which object?

A bullwhip is the comparison: the thin tip might have been cracked to make noise or scare off attackers. The tail had about 80 bones and made up over half the animal's length.

Andrew Carnegie gave copies of his Diplodocus skeleton to heads of state in the hope of promoting what?

World peace was the aim: Carnegie hoped a shared wonder would show nations how much they had in common. His great-grandson has called it dinosaur diplomacy.

Rare fossil skin from a quarry in Montana shows that the body of Diplodocus was covered in what?

Scales in at least six shapes, none wider than a centimetre, crowd a skin patch under 70 centimetres long. It probably came from a young animal.

Roughly how often did Diplodocus grow a new tooth to replace each worn one at the front of its jaws?

About once a month, or within 35 days, a fresh tooth took over. As many as five replacements were growing in each socket, waiting their turn.

A 1915 war machine built to crush barbed wire earned the nickname Diplodocus militaris; what was it?

An early tank, the Boirault machine was an open frame rolling inside one huge track. It proved too fragile and slow, and could barely change direction.

The first bone of Dippy the Diplodocus was dug up in Wyoming in 1899 on which American holiday?

Independence Day, July 4, earned the skeleton the nickname the star-spangled dinosaur. The first piece out of the ground was a toe bone.

Where was London's Dippy the Diplodocus skeleton kept during the Second World War to protect it from bombs?

The museum's basement housed the skeleton, taken to pieces, for the length of the war. It was rebuilt afterwards in the Reptile Gallery.

Because its centre of mass sat close to its hips, Diplodocus could probably do what with little effort?

Rear up on two legs, with the tail as a prop to make a steady tripod. That pose may have lifted its feeding reach from about 4 metres to about 11.

What does the name Diplodocus mean, a reference to unusual bones on the underside of its tail?

Double beam comes from the Greek diplos and dokos. The bones, called chevrons, may have shielded blood vessels when the heavy tail rested on the ground.

Diplodocus lived about 150 million years ago, towards the end of which geological period?

Jurassic rocks in the American West record a world ruled by giant plant-eaters. Most Diplodocus fossils are between about 152 and 149 million years old.

Diplodocus belongs to which group of dinosaurs, known for long necks, long tails and four pillar-like legs?

Sauropods include the largest animals ever to live on land. Diplodocus and its close kin were the slender ones, lighter in build than the titanosaurs.

Which big meat-eating dinosaur, the top predator of its day, hunted in the same lands as Diplodocus?

Allosaurus shared the plains with Diplodocus, whose sheer size may have put predators off. Tyrannosaurus rex lived roughly 80 million years later.

Which famous plant-eating dinosaur lived alongside Diplodocus and is often found at the same fossil sites?

Stegosaurus turns up beside Diplodocus again and again: several were dug from the very quarry that held the famous 1899 skeleton. Triceratops lived tens of millions of years later.

Diplodocus carnegii honours Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American tycoon who made his fortune in which industry?

Steel made Carnegie rich enough to pay for the dig. The skeleton was the first dinosaur his museum ever collected, so the new species took his name.

Which British monarch asked Andrew Carnegie for a copy of his Diplodocus after seeing a sketch at Skibo Castle?

Edward VII saw the drawing at Carnegie's Scottish home in 1902. The copy unveiled in London three years later was the first skeleton of a long-necked giant shown outside the United States.

The small teeth of Diplodocus, which pointed forward at the front of its jaws, were shaped like what?

Pegs is the usual description: long, slender crowns with blunt tips. They grew only at the very front of the mouth, so Diplodocus had no back teeth for chewing.

Why did pioneering scientists, including John Bell Hatcher, believe that Diplodocus spent its life in water?

Nostrils atop its skull seemed made for breathing while the body stayed below the surface. A 1951 study showed that water pressure on the chest would have stopped a submerged giant from breathing.

Diplodocus was famous for decades for holding which record among the dinosaurs then discovered?

Longest was its claim to fame, at about 25 metres from nose to tail. Relatives known from scrappier remains, such as Supersaurus, were probably longer still.

The Dippy the Diplodocus skeleton unveiled in London in 1905 is not real bone but a copy made of which material?

Plaster of Paris was used to copy each of the real bones in America. The 292 pieces reached London packed in 36 crates.

Skin impressions found in 1990 showed that close kin of Diplodocus had spines like those of which reptile?

Iguana spines are the closest match: narrow, pointed and up to 18 centimetres long. Artists have been adding them to Diplodocus ever since.

Air spaces in the neck and chest bones suggest Diplodocus breathed much like which living animals?

Birds move air through their lungs more efficiently than mammals or other reptiles do. A similar system would have helped Diplodocus breathe through its enormous neck.

Unusual wear on the cheek side of its teeth suggests Diplodocus fed mainly by doing what?

Stripping branches bare is the best fit: one row of teeth raked the foliage off while the other steadied the stem. A 2012 computer model ruled out bark as its target.

William Holland argued that a Diplodocus with sprawling, lizard-like legs would have needed what for its belly?

A trench was his reply to scientists who drew the animal crawling like a lizard: the deep chest could not have cleared the ground. Fossil footprints found in the 1930s ended the argument.

The giant Diplodocus dug out of New Mexico from 1985 was reported with over 200 gastroliths, which are what?

Stomach stones are rocks an animal swallows and keeps in its gut. Some animals that cannot chew use them to grind up tough food.

The real fossil bones of Dippy the Diplodocus have stood since 1907 in a museum in which American city?

Pittsburgh had to wait for its own star: the museum needed a bigger hall first, so London's copy went on show two years before the original.

Which 1999 BBC series showed spiny-backed Diplodocus in an episode titled Time of the Titans?

Walking with Dinosaurs gave the animal a starring role. Its scene of a female laying eggs through a tube-like organ was pure guesswork by the programme makers.

A Montana quarry packed with young Diplodocus is named after which annual occasion, the day it was found in 1994?

Mother's Day 1994 was when museum volunteers came across the site. The herd is thought to have gathered at a shrinking water source and died in a drought.

In which language did the word diplodocus become an everyday term for any giant long-necked dinosaur?

French speakers say le diplodocus much as English speakers say brontosaur. Paris was one of the capitals that received a copy of the famous skeleton.

Which fossil hunter named Diplodocus in 1878 while locked in the bitter rivalry known as the Bone Wars?

Othniel Charles Marsh named the animal from bones shipped to him by collectors out west. He and his arch-rival Cope were racing to collect and describe as many fossil species as they could.

The first Diplodocus fossils were collected in 1877 at a quarry near Cañon City, in which American state?

Colorado's Garden Park quarry kept giving: fossils of Diplodocus-like animals were collected there until 1884, among them the first complete head of the family ever reported.

Most Diplodocus fossils come from which dinosaur-rich band of rock stretching across the American West?

Morrison Formation rocks run from New Mexico to Canada and record rivers, lakes and floodplains with wet and dry seasons. Diplodocus is one of the commoner dinosaurs in them.

Giant bones found by hikers in New Mexico in 1979, now classed as Diplodocus, were first given which name?

Seismosaurus was announced in 1991, and estimates of its length later climbed as high as 52 metres. Misplaced tail bones had inflated the figure, and by 2006 it was folded into Diplodocus.

Which long-necked neighbour of Diplodocus in the American West also belongs to its family, the diplodocids?

Apatosaurus is a diplodocid too, though on a separate line of the family. Both animals had front legs shorter than the back ones, giving a level back.

A 2024 study estimated that a giant Diplodocus found in New Mexico lived to roughly what maximum age?

About 60 years would make it one of the oldest dinosaurs known, some 20 years older than any other long-necked giant aged so far.

The first Diplodocus bones, dug up in 1877, were sent to the Peabody Museum at which American university?

Yale received the bones from collectors Benjamin Mudge and Samuel Wendell Williston. Within a year the animal had its name, based on little more than a few tail bones.

A bronze copy of Dippy the Diplodocus placed in the Natural History Museum's garden in 2024 has which name?

Fern arrived a year after the museum's older copy left London for Coventry on long-term loan.

During its tour of Britain, Dippy the Diplodocus went on show in July 2021 inside which English cathedral?

Norwich Cathedral was the final stop of a tour that began in Dorset in 2018 and called at Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff along the way.

Each front foot of Diplodocus carried just one of which feature, unusually large and of unknown purpose?

A claw, flattened from side to side, sat on one toe of each front foot while the other toes had none. What Diplodocus did with it is still a mystery.