Therizinosaurus (; meaning "scythe lizard") is a genus of very large therizinosaurid that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now the Nemegt Formation around 70 million years ago. The first remains of "Therizinosaurus" were found in 1948 by a Mongolian field expedition at the Gobi Desert, and later described by Evgeny Maleev in 1954 who originally thought the remains to belong to a turtle-like reptile. "Therizinosaurus" is known only from a few bones, including gigantic hand claws, from which it gets its name, and additional findings comprising forelimb and hindlimb elements that have been discovered during the 1960s-1980s.