Robin's Great Coloring Pages: Barosaurus the huge Sauropod from Utah and a few other Sauropods coloring pages

Welcome to my free coloring pages blog!

Today's new drawing is of a huge Sauropod called Barosaurus.

Barosaurus just laid Eggs

Barosaurus was a huge Sauropod that has been found in the Western United States... particularly in the Morrison Formation, and it is one of the dinosaurs found at Dinosaur National Monument in Eastern Utah. Barosaurus is a type of Diplodocid. It is a close relative to Diplodocus. It is less robust than other Sauropods like Apatosaurus. That means it was more lightly built. Still, it was an enormous animal.

Brigham Young University (BYU) has a vertebra that is suspected of being from the Barosaurus. If that turns out to be the case then Barosaurus may have been as long as 157 feet or 48 meters! That would mean it weighed around 73 tons or 66 metric tons. Some estimates say it would have been closer to 66 tons or 60 metric tons. That would make Barosaurus one of the largest land animals ever to have lived! (Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan were still heavier, but not longer.) By the way, Sauroposeidon was probably the tallest dinosaur. It was around 60 feet tall. That is over 18 meters!

Barosaurus neck vertebrae were very long and they seem to indicate that it could move its head side to side more than up and down. . . so possibly it fed on lower vegetation. Barosaurus, which had a very long neck, still only had 9 vertebrae in its neck.

No Barosaurus skull has ever been found, however, its close cousin Diplodocus had a long narrow skull so that is how I drew this Barosaurus skull. The teeth would have been peg-like and near the front of the mouth for stripping leaves off of trees. Some Sauropods, like Brachiosaurus and Sauroposeidon, had spoon-like teeth and those Sauropods may have eaten quite differently.

Barosaurus, like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus, had shorter front legs and longer back legs. This is different from the Brachiosaurs like Sauroposeidon and Brachiosaurus. Brachiosaurs had longer front legs and shorter back legs. This is why even a full-sized Barosaurus would not have been as tall as a Brachiosaur like Sauroposeidon.

Barosaurus had shorter vertebrae in its tail so its tail was shorter than of Diplodocus, however, the dinosaur were still both very very long. The more complete fossilized skeletons of Barosaurus show an animal that was around 89 feet or 27 meters in length. This smaller Borasaurus would have weighed around 22 tons or 20 metric tons.

Sauropods laid their round eggs near forests and abandoned the eggs to Nature. That is one theory. It is thought that sub-adults would join the migrating herd of their species when the sub-adult reached roughly the size of a full-grown African elephant. So in this drawing, the Barosaurus mother just laid her eggs near the forest. Other Barosaurus mothers from her herd would soon follow and so the same. This meant that there were thousands of eggs. . . or at least several hundred. When the baby Sauropods hatched they would make a dash for the cover of the forest. They would feast on ferns etc. until they were large enough to join the herd.

Like sea turtles, probably only one in a hundred Sauropods survived to reproduce. But once they joined the herd the juveniles or sub-adults would have protection from the adults. The whip-like tail was a powerful defensive weapon. A tail of the adult Barosaurus would have weighed tens of thousands of pounds and no predator could ignore that. Also, there is the thought that perhaps the whip-like tails could crack (like cracking a whip)... and that perhaps this would create a very loud and possibly painful to predators sound. IF the tail whipped fast enough it may have even created a sonic boom!

NOTE: This drawing, in printable form, can be found by clicking on the button labeled "Paleontology." Then remember to scroll down to the bottom of the list in the Mesozoic section to see the title of this new drawing. Then click on the title to get the printable version of the drawing. I am also adding a couple of other Saropod drawings below. These animals were all mentioned in today's post. They are all Sauropods.

Personal Note: I apologize for posting less often. We are still in the middle of a move with some of our stuff at the new house and some still at our old house. Once our move is completed I will be able to have time to draw and post more frequently.