Brachiosaurus Facts for Kids
BRAK-ee-oh-SORE-us · its name means “arm lizard”
A tall giant plant-eater with front legs longer than back legs.
- 📏 75 ft23 m1 long
- ⚖️ 66 tons60 tonnes2
- 🕰️ 145 to 150 million years ago145 to 150 million years ago2
- 🍽️ plants
Brachiosaurus was a giant plant-eater. Its front legs were longer than its back legs. It reached high up for leaves.
Brachiosaurus stood tall like a giraffe, with a long neck and a small head. It ate leaves from the tops of trees where few other animals could reach. Its front legs were longer than its back legs, so its back sloped down toward its tail. Its name means arm lizard.
Brachiosaurus ate leaves from tall trees, such as conifers and ginkgoes, and could reach branches that shorter plant-eaters could not. Its name means arm lizard, for its long front legs. For many years scientists thought a skeleton from Tanzania in Africa, which stands in a museum in Berlin, was the same kind of animal. Today they say it was a close cousin and have given it its own name, Giraffatitan.
Every dinosaur number is scientists’ best guess from bones, so each one says where it came from.
How big was Brachiosaurus?
Brachiosaurus in numbers
| Length (nose to tail) | 75 ft23 m1estimate |
|---|---|
| Height at the hips | no checked number yet |
| Weight | 66 tons60 tonnes2maximum |
| When it lived | 145 to 150 million years ago145 to 150 million years ago2about |
| What it ate | leaves from the tops of tall trees |
| Fossils found in | western North America, including Colorado and Utah |
| What kind | a sauropod: a giant long-necked plant-eater |
Wow!
- Its front legs were longer than its back legs, like a giraffe's.
- It could eat leaves from the tops of tall trees.
- A famous skeleton in Berlin is really a cousin, Giraffatitan.
🦴 Brachiosaurus’s bones
Books about Brachiosaurus, free at the library
Ask a grown-up to tap the button: it shows where to borrow a book about Brachiosaurus for free.
Where was the land back then?
The continents were in different places when Brachiosaurus lived, 145 to 150 million years ago. Open Planet Earth, pick Drifting continents, and slide back in time to see where the land was.
Its neighbours in time
Where these numbers come from
- US Geological Survey, Dinosaurs: Facts and Fiction, checked 30 October 2026.
- National Park Service, checked 30 October 2026.
- Wikidata, Brachiosaurus (Q14397), checked 30 October 2026.
To read more: the Natural History Museum’s Dino Directory (see also, not copied).