Vulcanodon

Chapter • Meet the dinosaur

Overview

Vulcanodon was an early sauropod built like a living pillar-legged tank. It walked on all fours on robust, column-like limbs, carried a long neck out in front and a long tail held clear of the ground – no sauropod ever dragged its tail. Estimates of body length range from about 6.5 to 11 metres depending on how the incomplete skeleton is reconstructed, with a body mass of roughly 2.5 to 5 tonnes. Its hind limbs were long relative to the forelimbs and hips, a trait inherited from its smaller sauropodomorph ancestors, and the foot still bore a large curved claw on the inner toe. Like all sauropods, it was scaly rather than feathered. Because only part of the skeleton is known, its behaviour has to be read from anatomy. The limb bones describe a slow, steady walker that moved deliberately rather than quickly; top speed is usually estimated at no more than 10–15 km/h. The long neck let the animal sweep across a wide feeding area without shifting its heavy body, an energy-saving strategy that later sauropods took to spectacular extremes. Vulcanodon was a plant eater, most likely browsing ferns, cycads, conifer shoots and other seed plants growing along rivers and oases in an otherwise arid setting. No skull has ever been found, so the shape of its teeth remains unknown. Knife-like teeth discovered alongside the skeleton inspired the genus name "volcano tooth", but later work showed they belonged to a predator – probably a theropod that had scavenged the carcass or shed teeth nearby. The fossil was recovered from an island in Lake Kariba in northern Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and described in 1972 by the palaeontologist Michael Raath. The specimen, missing skull and neck, lay in sandstone sandwiched between basalt lava flows of the Karoo volcanic province – hence the name. For decades Vulcanodon was among the oldest sauropods known, and it remains a key fossil for understanding how the giant long-necks emerged from smaller, partly bipedal ancestors.

Chapter • Where it lived

Habitat

Vulcanodon lived in the Early Jurassic, roughly 201–190 million years ago, in what is now northern Zimbabwe. Its remains come from the Forest Sandstone of the Karoo succession, deposits laid down in a hot, dry landscape of migrating dunes crossed by seasonal watercourses and green corridors along rivers and oases. Basalt lava flows from the massive Karoo volcanism lie above and below the fossil-bearing layer. The type locality is an island in Lake Kariba, in the Zambezi valley.

Chapter • Wild behavior

Behavior & Ecology

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Chapter • Scientific place

Taxonomy