Dino of the Week: Cetiosaurus

Type Species: Cetiosaurus oxoniensis

Classification: Dinosauria – Saurischia – Sauropoda – Gravisauria - Eusauropoda - Cetiosauridae - Cetiosaurinae 

Time Period: Middle Jurassic

Location: Europe (England) 

Diet: Herbivore 

Cetiosaurus was the first sauropod to be named. In 1841 Sir Richard Owen named it the ‘whale lizard’, as the fossils were thought to belong to a marine organism something along the lines of an extremely large crocodile. We now know that Cetiosaurus was a land-dwelling sauropod who lived in a floodplain environment with open woodlands. It was a contemporary of the theropod hunter Megalosaurus, which may have preyed upon Cetiosaurus. This sauropod had a shorter tail and neck than most sauropods, and the forelimbs were roughly the same size as its hind limbs. It could grow to about fifty-two feet long and weighed around eleven tons. Its dorsal vertebrae – the bones along the back – had the original heavy build with limited air chambers, unlike the hollowed-out bones of later sauropods.