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ANATOMY
Janenschia (named after Werner Janensch) was a giant plant-eating dinosaur. This enormous dinosaur had a long neck, and a long tail. It was about 80 feet (24 m) long and weighed about 33 tons (30000 kg).

Janenschia walked on four thick legs; the hindlimbs had claws. The femur (thich bone) was up to 4 1/2 feet (1.38 m) long. Janenschia, like some other titanosaurids, may have been covered with armored plates, but there is no fossil evidence of this.

WHEN JANENSCHIA LIVED
Janenschia lived during the late Jurassic period, about 156 million to 150 million years ago. During this time, the Earth was warmer than it is now; the seasons were very mild, the sea levels were higher than they are now, and there was no polar ice.

BEHAVIOR
Although many sauropods may have travelled in herds, bonebeds of Janenschia fossils have not been found - only an incomplete fossil has been unearthed. Janenschia may have been a solitary animal.

Janenschia may have hatched from eggs, like other sauropods. Sauropod eggs have been found in a linear pattern and not in nests; presumably the eggs were laid as the animal was walking. It is thought that sauropods did not take care of their eggs. Sauropods life spans may have been in the order of 100 years.

INTELLIGENCE
It used to be thought that the sauropods (like Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus) and Stegosaurus had a second brain. Paleontologists now think that what they thought was a second brain was just an enlargement in the spinal cord in the hip area. This enlargement was larger than the animal's tiny brain.

Janenschia was a sauropod, whose intelligence (as measured by its relative brain to body weight, or EQ) was the among the lowest of the dinosaurs.

MOVEMENT
Janenschia likely moved very slowly on four legs (as determined from fossilized tracks and its leg length and estimated mass). Janenschia may have used its tail as a third leg in order to graze very tall vegetation.

FOSSILS
Only 2 forelimbs, 3 clawed hindlimbs (the femur was about 4 1/2 feet or 1.38 m long), and back and tail vertebrae were found - in Tanzania, Africa. This enormous dinosaur was named by German paleontologist Rupert Wild in 1991.

CLASSIFICATION
Janenschia was a:

• Saurischian ("lizard hipped" dinosaurs, the ancestors of birds)
• Sauropodomorph (long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters who walked on four legs)
• sauropod (very large herbivores)
• Titanosaurid - Janenschia is the earliest known titanosaurid genus
• Genus Janenschia

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