Classification: Dinosauria – Saurischia – Sauropoda – Gravisauria - Eusauropoda - Neosauropoda - Diplodocoidea – Flagellicaudata – Diplodocidae
Time Period: Late Jurassic
Location: United States
Diet: Herbivore
Haplocanthosaurus is known from four specimens belonging to two species, and none of these specimens has provided a skull. It was one of the smallest sauropods of the Morrison Formation, reaching only fifty feet in length. Its position in the sauropod family tree is debated, as it is seemingly a primitive form of either the diplodocids with their long and thin build or of the taller, shorter, and stockier macronarians (it's currently classified as a diplodocid, but the debate continues). That this primitive sauropod lived side-by-side with far more advanced diplodocids and macronarians is bewildering, and scientists speculate that it was a type of sauropod that appeared much earlier in the Jurassic – perhaps during the ‘paleontological black hole’ of the Middle Jurassic – but continued into the Late Jurassic.
Haplocanthosaurus was originally named Haplocanthus by paleontologist John Bell Hatcher, but he later found out about a fish genus that sounded just like this, and thinking that the name was already taken, he changed it to Haplocanthosaurus. Ironically, he had no need of changing the name: the fish was actually named Haplacanthus (spelled with an ‘a) rather than Haplocanthus (spelled with an ‘o’). This wasn’t noticed until years later when the name Haplocanthosaurus was in regular use, and the ICZN – the scientific body which oversees the naming of animals – granted a Green Light to the Haplocanthosaurus designation because of its wide usage.
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