Nothronychus

What it was like

Nothronychus was a therizinosaur, a strange plant-eating relative of meat-eating dinosaurs. It was about 5.3 meters (17 feet) long, with a small head, a long neck, a pot belly, wide hips and long claws on its hands.

It probably used those claws to pull branches toward its mouth. It walked on two legs and was probably covered in simple feathers.

Its world

It lived about 94 to 90 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what are now New Mexico and Utah. It shared the land with the horned Zuniceratops and the small tyrannosaur Suskityrannus.

One skeleton comes from the Tropic Shale, rocks laid down in a sea, so that animal must have been washed out from shore.

How it was found

Kirkland and Wolfe named Nothronychus in 2001. It was the first therizinosaur found in North America. Two finds are known.