Sauropods are a type of dinosaur that typically grew to enormous sizes.
Well known examples include the Diplodocus, Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus) and Brachiosaurus.
The biggest dinosaur ever is believed to be a Sauropod called Amphicoelias. This gigantic dinosaur could have reached as long 60 metres (200 feet) in length and weighed up to 120 tons!
The name Sauropod comes from the Greek language and means ‘lizard foot’.
Studies suggest that Sauropods reached heights of up to 18m (60ft), lengths of up to 34m (110ft) and weights of up to 100 metric tons!
Only the Blue Whale manages to compete with the Sauropods when it comes to size, and it lives in the water rather than on land like the Sauropods did.
Sauropods first appeared on the scene in the Triassic Period (around 200 million years ago) and became quite common late in the Jurassic Period (around 150 million years ago).
Sauropod fossils have been found on every continent of Earth, even Antarctica!
Common Sauropods of the Jurassic Period such as the Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus were eventually replaced by a group of Sauropods known as Titanosaurs around the end of the Cretaceous Period (around 80 million years ago).
Titanosaurs were some of the biggest creatures to ever exist on Earth and they certainly earned their name which comes from the mythological titans of Greek mythology.
Examples of Titanosaurs include the massive Paralititan (meaning tidal giant), the even bigger Argentinosaurus (meaning silver lizard and referring to Argentina, the country where it was discovered) and the Saltasaurus, which featured boney plates of body armor embedded in its skin.
Titanosaurs had relatively small heads and large nostrils.
Like other Sauropods, Titanosaurs lived all over Earth. Fossils of these great beasts have been found everywhere from Italy to Australia and New Zealand.
Unfortunately for the Titanosaurs, they were the last of the great Sauropods before the massive extinction event which occurred around 65 million years ago.
