The longest claws ever
Its claws were up to a metre long: the longest of any animal known.
Feathered and unusual · Theropods
Therizinosaurus
Scythe lizard · THAIR-ih-ZIN-oh-SORE-us
A tall, pot-bellied, feathered dinosaur with a small head, a long neck and gigantic claws on its hands.
- Size
- About 9 to 10m long; 5 tonnes
- Lived
- About 70 million years ago
- Found in
- Mongolia
Shuffles after you, claws dangling. Move your pointer and see.
To scale
How big was it?
The bars are drawn to the same scale. On these pages the animals are sized in proportion to each other as far as a screen allows: the giants are shrunk a little and the smallest are enlarged, so that you can see them all.
Good to know
Six things about the therizinosaurus
A theropod that ate plants
It belongs to the meat-eaters' family, but had a beak and leaf-shaped teeth for eating plants.
First thought to be a turtle
When the claws were found in 1948, they were taken for the ribs of a giant turtle.
What were the claws for?
Probably for pulling down branches, and for warning off hunters.
A big belly
It needed a large gut to digest leaves, which gave it a pot-bellied shape.
Known from its arms
Only its arms, claws and a few other bones have been found. The rest is based on its relatives.
The real thing
Photos of the therizinosaurus
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
What it ate
Leaves, pulled within reach with its enormous claws.
How we know
Its shape is rebuilt from more complete relatives found in China and Mongolia.
Keep going
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