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 herbivorous 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.
Beipiaosaurus does not appear in the Jurassic Park movies or novels, although was it featured in the Jurassic Park Institute.
Jurassic Park inspired games
Beipiaosaurus is nr. 036 of the Herbivore Ones that can be created in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder
Behind the Scenes
- Beipiaosaurus was featured in some concept art for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. However, Colin Trevorrow confirmed there were no plans for it to be added it to the final cut.
- Beipiaosaurus is one of only four therizinosaurs in the franchise. The other three being Erlikosaurus, Segnosaurus, and Therizinosaurus.
- It is so far the only therizinosaur in the series not to appear in Jurassic World: The Game.