Therizinosauridae

Therizinosauridae is an extinct family of therizinosauroid dinosaurs whose fossil remains have been found in mostly Late Cretaceous boundary. Even though representative fossils have only been found throughout Asia and North America, the range of Therizinosauridae is believed to have spanned much of the supercontinent of Laurasia based on several footprints and isolated remains in Europe and Africa. As of 2025, the family Therizinosauridae comprises nine definitive genera.

Therizinosauridae

User:Jens Lallensack Kabacchi · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
TherizinosauroideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Therizinosauroidea
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Therizinosauroidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Therizinosauroidea

Time the record covers

At least 127 million years on record.

The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 66 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 31 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 31 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 31 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 31 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 6 of 31 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 24 of 31 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 31 occurrences204–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence138–134 Mya — about 2 occurrences134–129 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–115 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences115–110 Mya — about 2 occurrences110–106 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences106–101 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences101–96 Mya — about 3 occurrences96–91 Mya — about 5 occurrences91–87 Mya — about 4 occurrences87–82 Mya — about 4 occurrences82–77 Mya — about 2 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 2 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 3 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 1 occurrence199.5 Mya72.2 Mya204 Mya63 Mya

31 occurrences of Therizinosauridae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

31 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

17 formations

Baynshire — 43.50°N, 107.76°EBaynshire — 43.14°N, 107.52°EBaynshire — 44.45°N, 107.38°EBaynshire — 43.46°N, 107.49°EBaynshire — 43.45°N, 107.40°EBaynshire — 44.35°N, 109.35°ENemegt — 43.49°N, 101.28°ENemegt — 43.47°N, 99.83°ENemegt — 43.48°N, 100.36°EJobu — 32.74°N, 130.84°EJobu — 32.75°N, 130.85°EZhonggou — 41.73°N, 97.65°EZhonggou — 39.93°N, 98.50°EBostobe — 45.95°N, 64.65°EBostobe — 46.57°N, 63.87°EIren Dabasu — 43.84°N, 113.72°ELufeng — 24.17°N, 102.40°EMoreno Hill — 35.07°N, 108.85°WSundays River — 33.42°S, 25.44°EMurtoi — 51.20°N, 106.27°EYuanpu — 23.48°N, 114.86°EYalovach — 40.49°N, 69.70°ETropic Shale — 37.08°N, 111.66°WXiagou — 39.93°N, 98.50°EOsoushinai — 44.72°N, 142.01°ELaijia — 29.10°N, 120.76°EBaruungoyot — 43.49°N, 99.83°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Therizinosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Therizinosauridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Therizinosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

143 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Therizinosauridae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

27 references

Each of the 31 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 15 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Therizinosauridae

Credit
User:Jens Lallensack Kabacchi
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Therizinosauridae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itTherizinosauroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Maleev 1954