Basic info on Brontosaurus: Name meaning: Thunder lizard Length: 72ft (22m) Weight: 15-17 tons Time period: Jurassic 150-152 million years ago Species: B.excelsus, B.parvus, and B.yanahpin Brontosaurus is by far one of the most well known dinosaurs and even though for almost 100 years it was believed to have never existed in the first place, the name itself still stuck. For quite some time Brontosaurus has claimed to have actually been an Apatosaurus that was misidentified after it was said to have been synonymous to the remains of Apatosaurus and in 1903 brontosaurus was reclassified as Apatosaurus excelsus. one major flaw with the original reconstruction of brontosaurus was that the skull had not even belonged to Brontosaurus to begin with and rather was the skull of a camarasaurus. The man who had discovered Brontosaurus was Othniel Charles Marsh,who at the time was in the midst of the "bone wars" with his rival Edward Drinker Cope. Essentially during the "Bone wars" Othniel and Cope fought to discover large amounts of new fossil species in a relatively short period of time and lasted their entire lives. Brontosaurus had just so happened to be one of Othniel's discoveries and he was in an inherit rush to publish his findings before Cope, as result because the Brontosaurus remains he had found contained no skull, he rushed and simply placed the head of Camarasaurus in his reconstruction. In turn this lead to heavy criticism and gradually the debunking of Brontosaurs, whose name became nothing but an utter shell of its non-existence. It wasn't until recent a publication in 2015 that Brontosaurus would be revived. A group of scientist at the New University of Lisbon in Portugal conducted a 5 year research project to truly find out if Brontosaurus was its own genus. After evaluating 81 sauropod specimens the team came to the conclusion that Brontosaurus has enough differences to distinguish it from Apatosaurus, thus ushering the return of the iconic dinosaur once more. However there is still some disagreement amongst the paleontological community as to whether Brontosaurus is still valid and ultimately the existence of Brontosaurus itself will be determined if paleontologist can come to a commonly agreed consensus. As of now three Brontosaurus species have been identified Brontosaurus excelsus, Brontosaurus parvus, and Brontosaurus yanahpin. Out of the three known species B.excelsus is the largest reaching a length of 22 meters(72ft) and an overall weight of 15-17 tons. Brontosaurus is very similar to Apatosaurus in terms of outwardly appearance, but what contrast them is their size, Brontosaurus is smaller than Apatosaurus with a skull that is more narrow and resembles that of a Diplodocus. Furthermore in relation to most other Diplodoclids, Brontosaurus is more stocky in build and exhibits a very thick neck and a stout muscular body as opposed to the slimmer bodily frame of other relatives such as Diplodocus and Supersaurus. Brontosaurus lived in what is now present day Colorado and may have been vastly distributed throughout the western portion of the united states during the late Jurassic period, living from about 150-152 million years ago.