Lusotitan

Lusotitan was a tall sauropod dinosaur that lived in prehistoric Portugal.

It was once thought to be a species of the related American dinosaur Brachiosaurus.

In 2003, scientists realised it was different enough to have its own name. They called it Lusotitan – a reference to Lusitania, the Roman name for the region that included modern Portugal, and the name of the massive titans from Greek mythology.

Lusotitan is known only from incomplete remains, so full-body reconstructions involve some guesswork based on related dinosaurs.

Experts currently think Lusotitan was around 21 metres long. However, this is only an estimate because the full skeleton has never been found.

We do have enough bones to identify it as a member of the brachiosaur group. Brachiosaurids were very tall – they had long front legs and an upward-tilted body posture, enabling them to reach vegetation from high treetops.

Nobody knows exactly how tall Lusotitan was. Much of the neck is still unknown.

We don’t know for sure how it compared in size to its better-known relative Brachiosaurus because Lusotitan remains are scarce.

The few bones we do have suggest Lusotitan might not have been quite as large as the 22-metre-long, 13-metre-tall Brachiosaurus. But without knowing the proportions of the full skeleton, it’s impossible to say.

The 2025 BBC documentary Walking With Dinosaurs depicts Lusotitan inflating external air sacs on its head.

Lusotitan’s skull has never been found and soft tissue features don’t fossilise well so it’s unknown if Lusotitan could really do this.

We do know all sauropod dinosaurs had internal air sacs that helped make sure these enormous animals weren’t too heavy.

Explore the features that helped sauropod dinosaurs grow so large.