Falcarius

Phylogeny: Dinosauria > Saurischia > Theropoda > Neotheropoda > Tetanurae > Avetheropoda > Coelurosauria > Maniraptora > Therizinosauria

Overview: Attributing one diet or lifestyle to broad groups of dinosaurs (or any animal) will lead to inaccurate assumptions. Theropods, which included dinosaurs like Megalosaurus, Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, were mostly carnivorous when we exclude modern birds. However, some non-avian theropods occupied quite different niches. Some were omnivores or even herbivorous, as we can see with Falcarius. Falcarius belonged to the clade Therizinosauria, which contained some of the most bizarre theropods known to science. They’re known for their unusual leg and hip bones, semi-upright posture, potbellied profiles, elongated necks and enormous arms. Their hands usually sported long claws. Some, such as Therizinosaurus itself, were quite enormous, but Falcarius was considerably smaller, as well as much more “primitive” within the Therizinosauria. Even among the more derived therizinosaurs, there was a lot of variation in body size.

Falcarius possessed a number of the traits for which the therizinosaurs are famed, though to a less exaggerated degree. Among the confirmed therizinosaurs, it’s usually classified as the most basal member of the clade, falling outside both the therizinosauroid superfamily (which included genera like Beipiaosaurus) and the family Therizinosauridae (to which Therizinosaurus belonged). Falcarius was more slenderly built and held its body more horizontally. The latter trait was the norm for most theropods, so it retained something its later relatives would evolve away from. Even as a basal therizinosaur, Falcarius had already evolved a herbivorous diet, though its ancestors would’ve been carnivores. Falcarius lived during the Early Cretaceous and is known from the lower levels of the Cedar Mountain Formation, in what is now Utah. While not a predator itself, other local theropods certainly were, most notably Utahraptor – the largest known dromaeosaurid dinosaur.