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Amphicoelias fragillimus (Maraapunisaurus fragillimus)

"Both Sides hollow"

Amphicoelias (/ˌæmfɪˈsiːliəs/, meaning "biconcave", from the Greek ἀμφί, amphi: "on both sides", and κοῖλος, koilos: "hollow, concave") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived approximately 150 million years ago during the Tithonian (Late Jurassic Period) of what is now Colorado, United States. Amphicoelias was moderately sized at about 18 metres (59 ft) in length and 15 metric tons (17 short tons) in body mass, shorter than its close relative Diplodocus. Its hindlimbs were very long and thin, and its forelimbs were proportionally longer than in relatives.

The namesake fossil of the type species Amphicoelias altus, American Museum of Natural History 5764, is uncertain in included material. When described by Edward Drinker Cope shortly after its discovery in 1877, Amphicoelias was noted to include many back vertebrae, a single pubis, and a femur. However, after purchase and cataloging of the material by the AMNH, Henry Fairfield Osborn and Charles Mook described that the specimen had only two vertebrae, a pubis, femur, tooth, scapula, coracoid, ulna and a second femur. The additional material, not mentioned by Cope, was found close in proximity to the holotype and was similar to Diplodocus, a relative of Amphicoelias. Their assignment was questioned by subsequent authors Emanuel Tschopp et al. in an analysis of Diplodocidae.

During the description of Amphicoelias altus in 1877, Cope additionally named A. latus, for a femur and tail vertebrae. Following its description, Osborn and Mook in 1921 reidentified the material as a specimen of Camarasaurus, an assignment followed by other authors who reviewed the material. A year later 1878, Cope named the third species of Amphicoelias, A. fragillimus for a gigantic dorsal vertebra that was subsequently lost. Measuring approximately 2.7 m (8.9 ft) if reconstructed based on Diplodocus, early estimates for the length of the animal in life were between 40 and 60 m (130 and 200 ft) long. Due to the incomplete nature, such lengths–the longest of any known dinosaur and sauropod–were largely ignored. In 2018, Kenneth Carpenter renamed Amphicoelias fragillimus as the new genus Maraapunisaurus, and reclassified it from Diplodocidae to Rebbachisauridae.

The third named Amphicoelias species, A. fragillimus, was known only from a single, incomplete 1.5 m (4.9 ft) tall neural arch, either last or second to last in the series of back vertebrae. Based only on an illustration published in 1878, this vertebra would have measured 2.7 meters (8.9 ft) tall in life. However, it has been argued that the scale bar in the published description contained a typographical error, and the fossil vertebra was in fact only 1.38 meters (4.5 ft) tall. In addition to this vertebra, Cope's field notes contain an entry for an "mmense distal end of femur”, located only a few tens of meters away from the giant vertebra. It is likely that this undescribed leg bone belonged to the same individual animal as the neural spine, but it was never collected or described. In 2018, A. fragillimus was given its own genus, Maraapunisaurus, and reclassified as a primitive rebbachisaurid.