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    Home»Science»The Weirdest Dinosaur Ever: Therizinosaurus
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    The Weirdest Dinosaur Ever: Therizinosaurus

    Kurt BrozBy Kurt BrozJune 11, 2020Updated:June 11, 20203 Mins Read
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    Therizinosaurus doesn’t quite have the same name recognition of Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, or Velociraptor. It should, though. Therizinosaurs are the weirdest dinosaurs by far.

    Therizinosaurus was a theropod. Theropods are the 2-legged dinosaurs that included the aforementioned T-rex, Spinosaurs, and modern birds. That makes them cool in the sense that they were giant (30 feet or about 10 meters) dinosaurs like all of our favorites, walking on 2 legs and stalking their prey.

    Their prey? Plants. Lots of delicious plants.

    Via dinopedia.

    But what makes Therizinosaurs so cool is what they had on their hands. These weird herbivores had what is probably the largest claw of any animal ever. Each individual came equiped with a set of 3 foot (1 meter) long daggers attached to their hands. Imagine an ostrich walking around with crazy Wolverine claws and that’s about a start. In fact, Therizinosaur literally means “scythe lizard”.

    When found these giant claws were so weird scientists kind of assumed they were from something like a giant turtle. A paper was published in 1970 by Anatoly Rozhdestvensky (On the giant claws of mysterious Mesozoic reptiles) suggesting these weird claws were of the dinosaur variety, and not some heavily armed turtle or lizard. Additional fossils were found in the Gobi Desert and a picture became more clear…

    Well, the picture of WHAT a Therizinosaur was. Not much else about it.

    Via Wikipedia.

    Aside from having giant knives for hands, these dinosaurs were also massive compared to their nearest relatives in the maniraptor group. Think a duck versus a 30 foot dinosaur. They also had a weird, long beak and were likely covered in feathers or something very structurally similar to feathers.

    Via Wikipedia.

    So why did Therizinosaur have 6 claws on its hands as it hung out in Mongolia?

    Their claws, while insane, don’t have the characteristics of a specialized structure. They weren’t insanely sharp or jagged or any other appearance that would set them apart from just a regular old “generic claw”. That means those claws probably served multiple purposes. Many animals with huge claws use them in a few ways. They can help grab food, pull down branches to get food, protect yourself from giant predators, and might have been way sexy to other Therizinosaurs.

    He/she even stars in video games! Via Ark.gamepedia.

    To quote Stephan Lautenschlager, “While some therizinosaur taxa used their claws in a generalist fashion, other taxa were functionally adapted to use the claws as grasping hooks during foraging.”

    You may be cool but you’ll never be a giant vegetarian dinosaur with swords for hands cool.

    What is your favorite weird dinosaur? Let Nerdbot know in the comments!

    Author

    Kurt Broz
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    Kurt Broz
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    THE Kurt Broz is not just a personality for Nerdbot, but he's also the editor-in-chief and a real live scientist! Born on the snowy shores of Lake Erie in good ol' Cleveland, Ohio, Kurt Broz has been there and back again, now residing in sunny Southern California. You can find THE Kurt Broz in cosplay, buying comics, hiking, and even writing for Nerdbot and WLFK Productions. He may be a child of the 80's but he is certainly a man of the world.

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