Outline: a typical theropod
Erliansaurus
"Erlian lizard"
Type species Erliansaurus bellamanus
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Theropods, Therizinosauridae
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Xu et al. 2002
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Erliansaurus
What it was like
Erliansaurus was a therizinosaur, a plant eater with a long neck, long claws on its hands and a small head. It is known from part of a skeleton.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now northern China. Its bones come from the Iren Dabasu Formation, where it shared the land with another therizinosaur, Neimongosaurus, the giant oviraptor Gigantoraptor and the plant eaters Bactrosaurus and Gilmoreosaurus.
How it was found
Xu and colleagues named Erliansaurus in 2002, from a single find. Its species name means "beautiful hand".
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Therizinosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: X. Xu, Z.-H. Zhang, and P. C. Sereno, X.-J. Zhao, X.-W. Kuang, J. Han, L. Tan. 2002. A new therizinosauroid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Iren Dabasu Formation of Nei Mongol. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 40(3):228-240