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ANATOMY
Vulcanodon was about 20 feet (6.5 m) long. It was a long-necked, long-tailed plant-eater with a small head, thick legs, and a bulky body. It had nail-like claws on its feet and an enlarged claw on each big toe. Its front legs were relatively long.

EGGS
Vulcanodon, like other sauropods, probably hatched from eggs. It is thought that sauropods did not take care of their eggs .

DIET
This big, heavy reptile was an herbivore (it ate only plants, like ferns and tree leaves). It must have eaten a tremendous amount of plant material each day to sustain itself. Vulcanodon must have spent most of its time grazing. It swallowed leaves and other vegetation whole, without chewing them. Its food probably included conifers (which were the dominant plant when the large sauropods lived), gingkos, seed ferns, cycads, bennettitaleans, ferns, club mosses, and horsetails.

MOVEMENT
Vulcanodon moved relatively slowly on four sturdy legs.

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

FOSSILS
A partial fossil of Vulcanodon was been found in Mashonaland North, Zimbabwe, Africa. The fossil footprints called Deuterosauropodopus from Lesotho, South Africa, may belong to Vulcanodon.

CLASSIFICATION
Vulcanodon belonged to the:

• Kingdom Animalia (animals)
• Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
• Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
• Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the ancestors of birds
• Sauropodomorph - long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters who walked on four legs
• Suborder Sauropoda - large herbivores
• Family Vulcanodontidae - early sauropods
• Genus Vulcanodon
• Species V. karibaensis (the type species, named by Raath in 1972).