Therizinosaurus

Hi again. I've noticed it's been a long time since I blogged about dinosaurs, so I thought I'd change that tonight. Not too long ago I noticed an article about a species of dinosaur called Therizinosaurus. Now you're probably confused, wondering "What kind of dinosaur is that?" Well here's an artist's rendition:

There it is. I know this dinosaur may look strange to some, but this is a theoretical look for Therizinosaurus because not many bones have been found. I learned today that its looks are primarily based off of other fossils of the family this dinosaur belonged to. The only sure features of this dinosaur were the huge claws that were found, each one measuring up to 3.28 feet in length.
Therizinosaurus was a dinosaur that lived in what is now Asia, primarily Mongolia. Its name comes from the Greek words Therizo (to cut or to reap) and Sauros (Lizard). One swipe of those claws would be enough to put the Grim Reaper out of business. Probably not because despite the odd appearance it was theorized that Therizinosaurus was a plant eater. So if that were to prove true we are off the menu for this dinosaur.
I'm not really sure how tall this dinosaur probably stood. Wikipedia said this dinosaur was theorized to have been up to ten metres in length. The picture of the size comparison makes me think this dinosaur is believed to have been possibly around 15 feet tall. However the only way to be 100% sure is to find a complete skeleton. So it probably wouldn't have been that big. We don't know for sure, and that's one of the most fun things about paleontology.
My first introduction to this group of dinosaurs was with watching the documentary When Dinosaurs Roamed America. The animal featured was a cousin called Nothronychus living in what is now New Mexico. The narrator described it as looking "...like a half-plucked turkey and walks like a pot-bellied bear." However I first officially saw Therizinosaurus in the anime series Dinosaur King where it was featured as one of the Secret Dinosaurs (a dinosaur that the main antagonist Dr. Z hatched, raised, and experimented on in secret, and strangely was the only one that forgave him for the experiments done upon it). A few months ago I saw an episode of Chased by Dinosaurs where Nigel Marvin went back to prehistoric Mongolia to find this dinosaur. In case you're wondering, I'd say that there's a very good chance of this dinosaur appearing in my books. In fact, I have plans to use it when I finally take all of you to the part of Dymos that parallels Asia. I did just think that it would be interesting to see this dinosaur in the Jurassic Park franchise. What do you think?

Visiting the Museum of Ancient Life

Just a quick update. Today was my 20th birthday, and I had a really great day. Not everything went as I had hoped it would (but not in the bad kind of way). Some things I had hoped to get done didn't happen. Oh well. It won't happen again for another year.
The biggest and coolest thing I did was go with a family member to the Museum of Ancient Life. I've been wanting to go for a while, and today that opportunity finally came. They had the coolest collection of fossils and ways to view the prehistoric worlds. I saw an actual skeleton of the dinosaur Supersaurus (a cousin of Apatosaurus) as well as a Brachiosaurus (and he/she was big). A dinosaur that I don't recall reading about before was Tanycolagreus (a small, carnivorous dinosaur from the Jurassic period). I also got to see some of the earliest dinosaurs (such as Herrerasaurus and Eoraptor) and other prehistoric animals (Dimetrodon, Eryops, and Dyictodont). Sorry, can't exactly remember the spelling on that last dinosaur. I did get to see some ceratopsians (cousins of Triceratops) that I had read about, but never seen in person. These cool dinosaurs were Chasmosaurus, Psittacosaurus, and Protoceratops. There were also several specimens of amber (the fossilized tree sap) with lots of bugs inside. Sorry, no one was digging in to extract dino blood like in Jurassic Park. Some of the first sea creature skeletons I saw included the giant turtle Archelon, the plesiosaur Elasmosaurus, and the mosasaur called Tylosaurus. They were really big (plenty of reason to stay out of the prehistoric oceans). There was also this cool diorama of the age of the dinosaurs (using dino figures found in the gift shop). A few other skeletons I got my first look at included Struthiomimus (a relative of Gallimimus from Jurassic Park), Anhanguera (a type of pterosaur), a complete skeleton of Utahraptor (a cousin of the Velociraptors), Gargoyleosaurus (a type of ankylosaurus), and Othnelia. All in all, that was a very fun trip.