NAME

Meaning - Nothronychus means “Slothful claw”“
Pronounced - no-thron-EYE-kus
Named By - James I. Kirkland and Douglas G. Wolfe
When Named - 2001
DIET

Herbivore (plant-eater) - this is unusual for a theropod
SIZE

Length - 14.5-19.5 ft (4.5-6 m) long
Height - ?
Weight - 900 kg
WHEN IT LIVED

Late Cretaceous period, about 90 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED

Fossils have been found at the Moreno Hill Formation, Haystack Butte in the southern Zuni Basin, Catron County, New Mexico, USA, North America.
FOSSILS

About 40 to 60 percent of a composite skeleton formed from two individuals has been found.
CLASSIFICATION
  • Kingdom Animalia (animals)
  • Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
  • Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
  • Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
  • Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
  • Tetanura - advanced theropods with three fingers
  • Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
  • Family Therizinosauria - strange theropods with a toothless beak, a bird-like hip (more like ornithischians than saurischians!), and four-toed feet, with all four toes facing forward
  • Genus Nothronychus
  • Species N. mckinleyi (type species named by James I. Kirkland and Douglas G. Wolfe vide Stanley, 2001)
INTERESTING FACTS

Nothronychus was a very strange dinosaur that had 4-inch (10 cm) long curved finger claws similar to those of sloths. This dinosaur walked on two legs. It had long arms, a long neck, a small head, a toothless beak, leaf-shaped cheek teeth, and a short tail. Although no feather imprints or fossils have been found, relatives of Nothronychus did have feathers.

Nothronychus lived in swampy forests.