Their function remains unknown, though may have been useful for self-defence. They also retained fearsome claws on their front legs, which in Therizinosaurus could reach up to a metre in length, says Zanno. They shortened their tails “and started walking like Godzilla”, more upright than other theropods, Kirkland told New Scientist. Their necks grew long and their heads grew small compared with their body size. Later, therizinosaurs grew much more massive as they evolved the larger digestive system needed to process plant material. He adds that it had long filamentary feathers, like those of Beipaosaurus, a slightly smaller and more advanced therizinosaur that lived in China at about the same time.
The teeth were leaf-shaped, which Kirkland says is “a first step toward plant eating” from eating meat or insects. It had more numerous and smaller teeth than its predatory ancestors, but had yet to evolve the beak seen in its plant-eating descendants. Living about 125 million years ago, it was little over 1 metre high and 4 m from nose to tail. The sound effects of the owner of the Giant Claw from the Walking With Dinosaurs Special, ripped from the show, and eased in and out for each smooth sound. Leaf-shaped teethįalcarius is the most primitive – or least specialised – therizinosaur known, says Kirkland. But the mystery for palaeontologists was how predators evolved into the slower vegetarian lifestyle of therizinosaurs and other plant-eating dinosaurs.
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