Jianchangosaurus

Jianchangosaurus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, ~126 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Holotype specimen
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	†Therizinosauria
Genus:	†Jianchangosaurus Pu et al. 2013
Type species
Jianchangosaurus yixianensis Pu et al. 2013

Jianchangosaurus ("lizard from Jianchang County") is a genus of therizinosaurian dinosaur that lived approximately 126 million years ago during the early part of the Cretaceous Period from the Yixian Formation in what is now China. The type specimen, a juvenile, was discovered in Jianchang County, in the western part of Liaoning Province. It was described in 2013 by a team of palaeontologists from the Henan Museum, who determined that it was among the most basal therizinosaurs.

Based on the type specimen, Jianchangosaurus was a small, lightly built, bipedal, ground-dwelling herbivore, which could grow up to an estimated 2 m (6.6 ft) long and was 1 m (3.3 ft) high at the hips. It probably had a body mass of around 26 kg (57 lb). In spite of its basal position, Jianchangosaurus already bore many of the hallmarks of therizinosaur anatomy, such as a beaked premaxilla, and the shape of the pubic boot. Jianchangosaurus' tibia was about half as long again as the femur, suggesting cursorial (running) habits.