Alxasaurus

Alxasaurus; Temporal range: Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
	Restored skeleton mount at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	†Therizinosauria
Superfamily:	† Therizinosauroidea
Genus:	†Alxasaurus; Russell & Dong, 1993
Type species
	†Alxasaurus elesitaiensis; Russell & Dong, 1993

Alxasaurus (

dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous (Albian age) Bayin-Gobi Formation of Inner Mongolia

.

History of discovery

The

paleontologist Dale Russell and his Chinese colleague Dong Zhiming in 1993. However, although the paper is technically included in the last issue of the 1993 volume of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, this issue was actually released in the early weeks of 1994.^[1]

Alxasaurus is named after the

People's Republic of China. The single known species, elesitaiensis, is named after Elesitai, a village found in this region, near which the fossil remains of Alxasaurus were located.^[1]

Five Alxasaurus specimens were recovered from the

paratypes IVPP 88301, IVPP 88402 (small individual), IVPP 88501 (immature individual) and IVPP 88510. Together the specimens represent most of the species hypodigm aside from the skull.^[1]

Description

Several specimens are known and they vary in size, but Gregory S. Paul estimated its maximum adult length up to 4 m (13 ft) and mass up to 400 kg (880 lb).

bipedal herbivore with a large gut to process plant material.^[1]

Classification

While exhibiting many typical therizinosaur features in overall body shape and in the teeth, the skeleton of Alxasaurus also shows several features present in more typical theropods, and the discovery of this animal provided significant evidence that therizinosaurs were aberrant theropods. Specifically, the semilunate

troodontids, and birds.^[1] Even more basal therizinosaurs such as the feathered Beipiaosaurus and primitive Falcarius have since been discovered with more theropod features and have helped to solidify this arrangement.^[3]^[4] Alxasaurus is now thought to occupy a position between the early Beipiaosaurus and later therizinosaurids such as Erlikosaurus, Segnosaurus, or Therizinosaurus.^[5]^[6]