Outline: a typical theropod
Erlikosaurus
"Erlik's lizard"
- Lived
- 94 to 84 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Length
- about 3.4 m (11 ft)
- Group
- Theropods
- Found in
- Mongolia
- Named by
- Barsbold and Perle 1980
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical theropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
90 million years ago
Field notes
About Erlikosaurus
What it was like
Erlikosaurus was a therizinosaur about 3.4 meters (11 feet) long, small for its family. It had a long neck, a small head with a toothless beak at the front, and small, leaf-shaped teeth behind, suited to cropping plants.
It is known from the most complete therizinosaur skull ever found, which has shown scientists much about how these odd dinosaurs fed.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Mongolia. Its fossil comes from the Baynshire Formation, where it shared the land with the larger therizinosaur Segnosaurus, the raptor Achillobator and the armored Talarurus.
How it was found
Barsbold and Perle named Erlikosaurus in 1980, from a single find. The name comes from a god of death in Mongolian myth.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Therizinosauria
Sources: WikidataNamed in: R. Barsbold and A. Perle. 1980. Segnosauria, a new infraorder of carnivorous dinosaurs. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 25(2):187-195