This section is taken from the Dinosaur Field Guide.
Beipiaosaurus ("Beipiao lizard") is one of the therizinosaurs, a very strange group of Cretaceous Period Theropods. Therizinosaurs, the Scythe Lizards, have very short, heavy feet, wide bellies, long necks, big claws, and small heads at the end of long necks. Their teeth are leaf-shaped, like those of the plant-eating dinosaurs, which makes them plant-eating members of the Theropods!
Beipiaosaurus is known from one partial skeleton from the Yixian Formation in Northeastern China. The volcanic ash that formed the mud of this formation was so fine-grained that it preserved very small details of the animals buried in it.
Fossils show that Beipiaosaurus‘s body was covered with long, slender filaments. These filaments were a sort of protofeather, a body cover that eventually evolved into true feathers in birds and some other dinosaurs (such as Caudipteryx). The protofeathers of Beipiaosaurus might have been used for insulation or for display, or for both.
Wikipedia has a more detailed and comprehensive article on Beipiaosaurus |
Jurassic Park Franchise
Beipiaosaurus does not appear in the Jurassic Park movies or novels.
Jurassic Park inspired games
Beipiaosaurus is nr. 036 of the Herbivore Ones that can be created in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder
Trivia
- Beipiaosaurus is one of only four therizinosaurs in the franchise. The other three being Erlikosaurus, Segnosaurus, and Therizinosaurus.
- It is the only therizinosaur not to appear in Jurassic World: The Game.