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Description
One of the biggest mysteries of Therizinosaurus was its claws. To begin with, they were thought to be used as weapons to help disembowel prey, but now that we know that it was a herbivore paleontologists have differing opinions on what it was used for. The most widely agreed consensus is that they were used to help it with feeding. However, personally I feel like the claws would not have been necessary with food acquisition; its arms were too low upon the body while its neck was long and raised perfectly to act as a giraffe or ostrich, which meant that food acquisition would have been easier without the claws instead of with them.

A couple of theories that I have are that they stood as ways to attract mates or collect food in other ways. Animals today with big claws tend to use them for purposes like digging up roots or pulling apart termite mounds. This would have also fit Therizinosaurus's lifestyle, as even though it was a herbivore its theropod past would have dictated that it would likely need some form of meaty nutrition to help acquire the much-needed proteins to keep going. And animals have developed far weirder ways to attract mates; some prairie chickens use specialized pouches on their breasts and necks to make loud noises needed to catch a female's attention, while one bird in Asia uses a long skin flap under its neck to advertise its worthiness. So it could have used said claws in a similar manner. But the most obvious use was defense; when a Tarbosaurus comes answering the dinner bell, what better way to protect yourself than by a pair of massive forearms with six foot long claws that can slice and dice with relative ease?

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More pics of my Therizinosaur MoC. As I said I'm more or less dissatisfied by how he turned out, so after I'm done with him I think I may take him apart and repurpose his pieces for something else; probably that gorilla MOC that he used to be. I'll figure it out eventually.

Bionicle, Hero Factory, and Legends of Chima (c) Lego
Models made by Kerian-halcyon

-Kerian

Description
One of the biggest mysteries of Therizinosaurus was its claws. To begin with, they were thought to be used as weapons to help disembowel prey, but now that we know that it was a herbivore paleontologists have differing opinions on what it was used for. The most widely agreed consensus is that they were used to help it with feeding. However, personally I feel like the claws would not have been necessary with food acquisition; its arms were too low upon the body while its neck was long and raised perfectly to act as a giraffe or ostrich, which meant that food acquisition would have been easier without the claws instead of with them.

A couple of theories that I have are that they stood as ways to attract mates or collect food in other ways. Animals today with big claws tend to use them for purposes like digging up roots or pulling apart termite mounds. This would have also fit Therizinosaurus's lifestyle, as even though it was a herbivore its theropod past would have dictated that it would likely need some form of meaty nutrition to help acquire the much-needed proteins to keep going. And animals have developed far weirder ways to attract mates; some prairie chickens use specialized pouches on their breasts and necks to make loud noises needed to catch a female's attention, while one bird in Asia uses a long skin flap under its neck to advertise its worthiness. So it could have used said claws in a similar manner. But the most obvious use was defense; when a Tarbosaurus comes answering the dinner bell, what better way to protect yourself than by a pair of massive forearms with six foot long claws that can slice and dice with relative ease?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More pics of my Therizinosaur MoC. As I said I'm more or less dissatisfied by how he turned out, so after I'm done with him I think I may take him apart and repurpose his pieces for something else; probably that gorilla MOC that he used to be. I'll figure it out eventually.

Bionicle, Hero Factory, and Legends of Chima (c) Lego
Models made by Kerian-halcyon

-Kerian