So Mant Therizinosaurs: Kayrasaurus changliensis

Publication Info:

Transcript:

Chun-Chi Liao et al. 2026. A new therizinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota and ecomorphological patterns among early therizinosaurians. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 24 (2); doi: 10.1080/14772019.2026.2710287

Meet Kayrasaurus changliensis, the newest Therizinosaur from Cretaceous China! These bizarre dinosaurs were found all over the world, but China's Jehol biota was apparently loaded with them!

Episode 347

Notes:

There's a brand new Therizinosaur out of an ecosystem that's turning out to be pretty Therizinsaur-y. Anyway, Therizinosaurs are a large, diverse group of very weird theropod dinosaurs. Most famous being the namesake of the group, Therizinosaurus, which was such a weird but cool animal. The herbivorous or omnivorous theropod that literally had 3-ft claws on its hands and wasn't quite as big as famous theropods like T-Rex, but it was getting pretty close at over 30 ft long and 5 and 1/2 tons. But I said Therizinsaurian dinosaurs were a diverse group ranging in size from giants like Therizinosaurus to much more modestly-sized animals roughly the size of a human or about 6-7 ft in length like Beipiaosaurus. And different species had slightly different body plans and slightly different but still very intimidating claws. Meet Kayrasaurus changliensis, the newest Therizinosaur from Cretaceous China. Specifically the world-famous Jehol Biota and 125 million years ago Kairuku shared its ecosystem with multiple other Therizinsaurian dinosaurs like the similarly-shaped Beipiaosaurus and its much more gracile relatives like Lingyuanosaurus and Jianchangosaurus. But Kayrasaurus would have towered over its relatives at over 11 ft long and up to 600 lbs. There's still some wiggle room in those measurements because the specimen, well it is nearly complete, is still a subadult. So not only is there a brand new cool weird dinosaur known from an almost complete subadult specimen, but it's also looking like one of the world's most famous prehistoric ecosystems was potentially loaded with Therizinosaurs. As usual, if you want more information, here's the source.