Erliansaurus

---

title: "Erliansaurus" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["therizinosauria", "dinosaur-genera", "cenomanian-dinosaurs", "taxa-named-by-xu-xing", "taxa-named-by-paul-sereno", "fossil-taxa-described-in-2002", "dinosaurs-of-china"] description: "Extinct genus of dinosaurs" topic_path: "geography/china" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erliansaurus" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extinct genus of dinosaurs ::

| fossil_range = Late Cretaceous, ~ | image = Erliansaurus mount.jpg | image_caption = Mounted skeleton cast | display_parents = 2 | taxon = Erliansaurus | authority = Xu et al., 2002 | type_species = Erliansaurus bellamanus | type_species_authority = Xu et al., 2002

Erliansaurus (meaning "Erlian lizard") is a genus of therizinosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Nei Mongol, Iren Dabasu Formation.

Discovery and naming

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Erliansaurus_skeleton.jpg" caption="Skeletal restoration"] ::

The remains of Erliansaurus were found near Sanhangobi in Inner Mongolia in 1999. The type species, Erliansaurus bellamanus, was described by Xu Xing, Zhang Xiaohong, Paul Sereno, Zhao Xijin, Kuang Xuewen, Han Jun and Tan Lin in 2002. The generic name refers to the town of Erlian and the specific name is derived from Latin bellus, "beautiful", and manus, "hand", in reference to the exquisite preservation of the forelimb.

The holotype, LH V0002, was uncovered in the Iren Dabasu Formation dating from the Cenomanian stage. It consists of a partial skeleton belonging to a subadult individual. It includes two cervical, one dorsal and two caudal vertebrae; a right scapula; a left forelimb only lacking the carpus; a partial right ilium and a fragmented ischium and pubis; the right femur; both tibiae, a right fibula and partial metatarsals. No skull traces were found.

Description

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Erliansaurus_bellamanus.jpg" caption="Life restoration"] ::

The holotype specimen represents a not fully-grown individual based on one unfused caudal vertebra, and therefore its adult size may be larger than the contemporary Neimongosaurus.

Erliansaurus was a bipedal herbivore. For a therizinosauroid, its cervicals were rather short. The preserved femur was very straight and had a very rounded femoral head; it measures 41.2 cm. The tibia was relatively elongated, measuring 37.3 cm long. Its fibula had an uncommon form, with a very high front edge and a concave top. The left arm is exceptionally preserved with almost every element intact, its hands bore enormous, strongly recurved and pointed claws of which the thumb claw was the largest, however, the carpal bones are missing.

Classification

Erliansaurus was by the describers assigned to the Therizinosauroidea, in a basal position and likely not a therizinosaurid. Some early cladistic analyses however, have recovered it as a basal member of the Therizinosauridae. The cladogram below is the result of the recently performed phylogenetic analysis of the Therizinosauridae by Hartman et al. 2019. |label1=Therizinosauridae |1={{clade |1={{clade |1=Suzhousaurus |2={{clade |1=Neimongosaurus |2={{clade |1=Therizinosaurus |2=Erliansaurus }} }} }} |2={{clade |1=Nanchao embryos |2={{clade |1=Nanshiungosaurus |2={{clade |1={{clade |1=Segnosaurus |2=AMNH 6368 }} |2={{clade |1=Erlikosaurus |2=Nothronychus graffami |3=Nothronychus mckinleyi }} }} }} }} }} }}

References

References

1. (2002). "A new therizinosauroid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Iren Dabasu Formation of Nei Mongol". Vertebrata PalAsiatica.
2. (2007). "Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages". Random House.
3. (2016). "The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs". Princeton University Press.
4. (2019). "A new paravian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America supports a late acquisition of avian flight". PeerJ.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::