History Main / AquaticSauropods

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'': Heavily downplayed. The ''Brachiosaurus'' are mainly shown living and roaming about on land, but during Scrat and Scratte's FallingInLoveMontage, they pass by by a loving pair of brachiosaurs in a pond.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': Downplayed with Littlefoot's family. While they're sometimes seen standing in the water and implied to be rather comfortable in it, they're shown to have no problems moving around on land. And throughout the series there are multiple scenes where his grandparents feed on aquatic plants in a clear allusion to early paleoart.

* ''Film/Dinosaur1985'': It's brought up that ''Brontosaurus'' was once thought to be a swamp-dwelling animal that ate watercress, but it was later discovered to actually have lived on land and mainly eaten conifer needles.

* The Mokeles from Website/SpecWorld are fictional sauropods adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. They also showcase how utterly aberrant they are for such a lifestyle, being more crocodile-like than anything dinosaurian, deconstructing this trope.

* ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'': Downplayed with the [=HighTops=], which are a tribe of ''Apatosaurus''. The first one encountered is at Cape Claw standing with his feet in the water. The second one encountered is held captive at Dragon Rock which is a desert-like environment, but he has no trouble moving about.

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformers'': In one of the ''Transformers UK'' issues, Sludge the ''Brontosaurus'' was said to have his already tremendous strength magnified in the water, making him the strongest Transformer of all.

In the days when dinosaurs were imagined to be [[DumbDinos sluggish, cold-blooded, and very stupid]], sauropods were thought of as dwelling in lakes and swamps, often eating aquatic plants. This was due to a belief that adult sauropods were simply too heavy to stand unaided, and so need some kind of medium more substantial than air to support then. Sauropod bones also had hollow areas -- especially along the vertebrae -- that were thought to contain air sacs. These air sacs were supposedly to help them stay afloat. Many sauropods, such as ''Brachiosaurus'', were thought to have had nostrils on the tops of their heads, which would let them breathe even if they were almost completely underwater. Some have suggested that these theories may have been influenced by the existence of prehistoric long-necked marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs.

* ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur'': In an ''Ordinary Basil'' storyline, immediately after escaping a hungry ''T. rex'' by swimming to the center of a nearby river (taking advantage of the beast's inability to swim), Basil and Louise find themselves quite surprised when the [[ThatsNoMoon "rock"]] they're standing on rises out of the water and reveals itself to be the top of the creature's head. The sauropod, just as startled by them as they are of it, ends up unwittingly helping them reach the entrance to an adjacent upper cavern by throwing them in that direction with a swing of its neck.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': Downplayed with Littlefoot's family. While they're sometime seen standing in the water and implied to be rather comfortable in it, they're shown to have no problems moving around on land. Throught the series there are multiple scenes where his grandparents feed on aquatic plants in a clear allusion to early paleoart.

* ''Film/TheLostWorld'': While the ''Brontosaurus'' is mostly a land-dweller along with others of its kind, [[AccidentallyCorrectWriting which at the time was not seen as a viable theory]], at the end of the film it returns to its home after falling through a bridge by swimming in the sea the way sauropods were though to do so.

* 'WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois'': In the first episode of ''Once Upon a Time... Man", sauropods are depicted wading in swamps.

* ''VideoGame/JoeAndMac'': The fifth boss is a ''Brachiosaurus'' that lives in a lake and attacks by spitting water and fish.

* ''VideoGame/JurassicPark'': In the Sega Genesis game, ''Bracheosaurus'' is depicted as a head and neck rising from the water in the River and Pumping Station levels that blocks Grant's progress until he drives them off with tranquilizer darts or gas grenades.

* In onr episode of ''WesternAnimation/CountDuckula'', the titular count gets scared by a ''Brontosaurus'' in a river.

* The sauropods ''Anime/DaikyouryuNoJidai'' are only ever shown restricted to water.

* ''Literature/LifeBeforeMan'': The page image comes from this book; more specifically, from a painting of some brachiosaurs standing in a lake whose waters almost reach their heads.

* There are multiple extinct aquatic reptiles with long necks, from ''Tanystropheus'' to ''Hyphalosaurus'' to the more well known plesiosaurs, which give them a sauropod-like apparence. However, they are not dinosaurs let along related to the long-necked herbivores.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': Downplayed with Littlefoot's family. While they're sometime seen standing in the water and implied to be rather comfortable in it, they're shown to have no problems moving around on land.

* The large, water-dwelling entity Mokele-mbembe from Congolese folklore is sometimes imagined to be a [[LivingDinosaurs contemporary sauropod]].

* ''Film/JurassicPark'': Brought up in the first film, where Dr. Sattler's response to seeing a ''Brachiosaurus'' rear up on its hind legs is "This thing doesn't live in a swamp!" (By TheNineties, this should not have been a surprise to a paleontologist, but the line was added for the benefit of [[ViewersAreMorons the viewers]], who might not have been aware that [[ScienceMarchesOn science had marched on]].)

However, [[ScienceMarchesOn later research put the kibosh on that idea]]. During the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance dinosaur renaissance]] that began in the late 1960s, many longstanding assumptions about dinosaur physiology, behavior and evolution were challenged or outright disproven. One of these assumptions was the idea that sauropods had to live in the water. Studies of sauropod anatomy and footprints proved that they were strong enough that they could support their bulk in open air environments, and that they were terrestrial animals no more likely to take to the water than modern-day elephants. Meanwhile, the "nostrils" on the tops of some sauropods' skulls were found to actually be a large resonating chamber to aid in communication. Their hollow bones and possible air sacs were found to be a product of their newly-accepted relation to birds. More and more, the image of the water-dwelling sauropod was found to be inaccurate. By the end of the 1970s, the consensus in the paleontological community was that they were landlubbers. Fiction has generally followed suit from the early 1990s on, but this trope still pops up every now and again.

* ''ComicBook/CartoonHistoryOfTheUniverse'': Written at a time when evidence and arguments against the idea of aquatic sauropods were being debated, the first issue alternates between showing sauropods in the water and on land (albeit usually on very muddy ground).

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* ''Literature/{{Plutonia}}'': Downplayed. Although published in 1924, to book depicts sauropods as primarily terrestrial. However, ''Brontosaurus'' is shown to take to water at any sign of danger.

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* In an ''Ordinary Basil'' storyline from ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur'', immediately after escaping a hungry ''T. rex'' by swimming to the center of a nearby river (taking advantage of the beast's inability to swim), Basil and Louise find themselves quite surprised when the [[ThatsNoMoon "rock"]] they're standing on rises out of the water and reveals itself to be the top of the creature's head. The sauropod, just as startled by them as they are of it, ends up unwittingly helping them reach the entrance to an adjacent upper cavern by throwing them in that direction with a swing of its neck.

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[[AC:Film - Animated]]
* A downplayed case appears in ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''. Baylene and all the other brachiosaurus featured in the movie are shown to be perfectly capable of living life and moving around on land. However, not too long after Aladar and his group arrive at the nesting grounds, Baylene proves more than happy to jump into the waters of the massive lake within the center of the nesting grounds and take a light swim.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheLochNessMonster'': The monster is portrayed as having feet as opposed to flippers, and thus resembling a sauropod when it walks on land. [[spoiler:However, it [[ScoobyDooHoax turns out to not be real]] at the end.]]

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* Brought up in the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' film, where Dr. Sattler's response to seeing a ''brachiosaurus'' rear up on its hind legs is "This thing doesn't live in a swamp!" (By TheNineties, this should not have been a surprise to a paleontologist, but the line was added for the benefit of [[ViewersAreMorons the viewers]], who might not have been aware that [[ScienceMarchesOn science had marched on]].)
* Played with in ''Film/KingKong1933''. An aggressive apatosaurus encountered by Carl Denham, Jack Driscoll, and the rest of the crewmen who go after Kong to try to save Anne is first met in a massive lake within one of Skull Island's swamps, where it proceeds to capsize their raft and rough them up. However, this same sauropod turns out to be capable of walking around on land outside of the water when it subsequently chooses to continue chasing after the surviving men after they've already made it out of the water (an especially notable case in that [[AccidentallyCorrectWriting the movie was made at a time when contemporary paleontologists themselves didn't believe as much to be possible]]).
* ''Film/TheLostWorld'': While the Brontosaurus is mostly a land-dweller along with others of its kind, [[AccidentallyCorrectWriting which at the time was not seen as a viable theory]], at the end of the film it returns to its home after falling through a bridge by swimming in the sea the way sauropods were though to do so.

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* In ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'', Alice's pet brontosaurus Brontya (it grew in a perfectly preserved egg found in permafrost after the egg was placed in a warm environment) is an aquatic reptile who lives in a pool with warm saltwater. It becomes plot-relevant in ''Literature/OneHundredYearsAhead'' as Alice leaves her handbag by the pool's side when Brontya gives her a ride and the handbag gets stolen.

* ''Literature/LifeBeforeMan'': The page image comes from this book; more specifically, from a painting of some Brachiosaurs standing in a lake whose waters almost reach their heads.
* In the book ''Patrick's Dinosaurs'', this is averted in the case of the apatosaurus/brontosaurus, which is portrayed as fully capable of supporting itself on land. Played straight, on the other hand, with the diplodocus, as it is shown swimming fully submerged under the water's of a massive lake. Quite damningly, the titular boy's older brother even says that it could act like a submarine due to having its nose on the top of its head; an especially clear case of artistic license due to how such theories had been disproven in the sixties, and this book was published in 1983.
* Downplayed in ''Plutonia'' by Vladimir Obruchev. Although published in 1924, it depicts sauropods as primarily terrestrial. However, brontosaurus is shown to take to water at any sign of danger.
* Literature/PoorLittleWarrior (published in 1959) [[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625793614/9781625793614___3.htm is about]] a time-traveling hunter finding and killing a brontosaurus in a swamp [[spoiler:before being killed by one of its parasites]]. The dinosaur is presented as stupid and useless... [[ThisLoserIsYou but nowhere near as much as the hunter.]]

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* In ''Ride/JurassicParkRiverAdventure'' a sauropod is one of the first dinosaurs seen, and it is at least up to its hips in water. This was done mainly for practical reasons, to hide the machinery of the animatronics; as mentioned above, the movie the ride is based on goes out of its way to dismiss this trope.

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* The ArtilleryGame ''[[https://frostdragonliz.itch.io/lemme-splash Lemme Splash]]'' parodies Brian J. Ford's claim that sauropods needed large bodies of water to reproduce. The object of the game is to launch both dinosaurs into the "sex lake".

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* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "It About Time", the boys and Candace escape from the Tyrannosaurus by grabbing onto some reeds dangling from the mouth of a feeding Alamosaurus that is standing in a body of water, who then places the three onto safety after being informed by Phineas.

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* There ''are'' a few sauropods that seem to have lived in swampy, flooded environments, such as ''Opisthocoelicaudia'' and ''Paralititan'' (the latter of which even means "tidal giant"; it was found in what was once a huge mangrove swamp in Egypt). However, they were still overall terrestrial animals that were quite capable of supporting themselves on land.