ملف:Camarasaurus lentus Carnegie.jpg

Camarasaurus lentus (Marsh, 1889) sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic of Utah, USA (public display, CM 11338, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA).

This is a near-complete juvenile sauropod dinosaur in the original fluvial sandstone matrix - such skeletons are extremely rare.

Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha, Camarasauridae

Stratigraphy: Brushy Basin Member, Morrison Formation, Upper Jurassic, 151 Ma

Locality: Carnegie Quarry, Dinosaur National Monument, northeastern Utah, USA

Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial animals ever. They all have the same basic body plan: large body with four walking legs, very long neck & tail, and a small head relative to body size. Sauropods were herbivores, and are often perceived as holding their heads & necks up high to reach vegetation normally out of reach to other organisms. Modern reconstructions of many sauropod species depict them with heads and necks held close to the horizontal, or at low angles above the horizontal.