22 Facts About Therizinosaurus

Therizinosaurus is a genus of very large therizinosaurid that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period in what is the Nemegt Formation around 70 million years ago.

The first remains of Therizinosaurus were found in 1948 by a Mongolian field expedition at the Gobi Desert and later described by Evgeny Maleev in 1954.

Maleev thought the remains of Therizinosaurus to belong to a large turtle-like reptile, and named a separate family for the genus: Therizinosauridae.

Unusual arms and body anatomy of Therizinosaurus have been cited as an example of convergent evolution with chalicotheriines and other primarily herbivorous mammals, suggesting similar feeding habits.

Therizinosaurus was a very tall animal, likely having a reduced competition over the foliage in its habitat and outmatching predators like Tarbosaurus.

Related searches

Therizinosaurus excluded the rib material from the holotype as it was re-identified by Rozhdestvensky to likely have come from a sauropod dinosaur, and not Therizinosaurus itself.

The most distinctive feature of Therizinosaurus was the presence of gigantic unguals on each of the three digits of its hands.

Therizinosaurus had a rather stocky and robust that was very wide on its lower end.

The fossils remained with uncertainty among the scientific community; however, in 1970 Rozhdestvensky was one of the first paleontologists to suggest that Therizinosaurus was actually a theropod dinosaur instead of a turtle.

Therizinosaurus suggested that the supposed ribs of the holotype were likely from a different dinosaur, possibly a sauropodomorph.

Therizinosaurus tentatively placed the family within Theropoda given the similarities of the mandible and dentition to other members.

Therizinosaurus analyzed the pelvis of the new genus and pointed out that segnosaurids were so different from other theropods that they could be outside the group or represent a different lineage of theropod dinosaurs.

Therizinosaurus based the idea on anatomical traits such as the skull and similar configuration.

Therizinosaurus maintained his position in 1988 by placing the Segnosauria into the now obsolete Phytodinosauria, and was one of the first to suggest a segnosaur assignment for the enigmatic Therizinosaurus.

Therizinosaurus found that many parts on therizinosaur holotype and referred specimens were lost or damaged, and sparse specimens with no overlapping elements were disadvantages when concluding the relationships of the members.

Therizinosaurus excluded the supposed ribs that were present on the holotype since they likely came from a different animal and not Therizinosaurus.

Russell and Russell reconstructed the feeding behavior of Therizinosaurus as being able to sit while consuming foliage from large shrubs and trees.

Whereas Chalicotherium was more suited to hook branches, Therizinosaurus was better at pushing large clumps of foliage because of its long claws.

Anthony R Fiorillo and colleagues in 2018 suggested that Therizinosaurus had a reduced bite force that may have been useful for cropping vegetation or foraging, based on relative therizinosaurids such as Erlikosaurus and Segnosaurus.

Barsbold in 1976 suggested that the unusual claws of Therizinosaurus may have been employed to impale or dig up loose terrain he pointed out their notorious fragility upon impact.

Therizinosaurus clarified that there is no evidence that the long claws of Therizinosaurus would have been used in active defense or attack it is possible that these appendages could have had some role when facing a threat, such as intimidation.

Environments that Therizinosaurus inhabited have been determined by the sedimentation across the formation, the d13C level preserved on the tooth enamel of many herbivorous dinosaurs and the numerous petrified wood across the formation.