Dino card No. 0094 of 2,027

Ampelosaurus

Say it: AM-pih-loh-SOR-us

Name means: “vineyard lizard”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksLate Cretaceous

Ampelosaurus was a huge, long-necked plant-eater that lived on an ancient island in what is now France. It had bony armor plates in its skin to protect itself from predators.1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Aude department, Occitania, France1

Food

Plants1 2

Length

13.9 to 16 m1 2

estimates vary; largest individual about 13.9 m (46 ft) based on a femur

Weight

8 tonnes to 9.98 tonnes1

Height

3.5 to 4.5 m2

hip height estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

hip height estimate

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 7 cars

as long as 4 cars parked in a rowas long as 89 bananas end to endas heavy as 1.5 elephantsas heavy as 2000 watermelonsas tall as 2 doors stacked up

How big was Ampelosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Ampelosaurus had bony armor plates called osteoderms that were 25 to 28 cm long. These plates came in three shapes: plate, bulb, and spine.1

It lived on the Ibero-Armorican Island, a large island that included parts of modern France and Spain.1

Over 500 bones of Ampelosaurus have been found, making it one of the best-known dinosaurs from France.1

Ampelosaurus was not a dwarf dinosaur. It was much larger than other island-dwelling sauropods like Magyarosaurus.1

The first fossils of Ampelosaurus were found at a farm called Bellevue near the village of Campagne-sur-Aude.1

Its name comes from the Greek word for vine, because it was discovered near a famous vineyard.1

AI-made picture of Ampelosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Ampelosaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Ampelosaurus
Named by: Le Loeuff 19953
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Lirainosaurinae3
Classification: Sauropodomorpha > Sauropoda > Titanosauria > Macronaria3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian / Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Marnes Rouges Inférieures, Grès à Reptiles, Villalba de la Sierra3
Countries: France, Spain3
Fossil records: 5 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Ampelosaurus was named by French paleontologist Jean Le Loeuff in 1995. The first bones were found in 1989 at the Bellevue farm in southern France.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if all the bones found at the Bellevue site belong to Ampelosaurus. Some may come from a different, unknown titanosaur.1

Where the facts come from

Ampelosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Ampelosaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Ampelosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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