However, with the unexpected discovery and description of "Alxasaurus" in 1993, the widely accepted sauropodomorph affinities of segnosaurs were questioned by Rusell and Dong. This new genus was far more complete than any other segnosaur and multiple anatomical features indicated that it was related to "Therizinosaurus". With this, they identified the Therizinosauridae along with the Segnosauridae to be the same group, the former name having taxonomic priority. Due to some primitive characters present in "Alxasaurus" they coined a new taxonomic rank, the Therizinosauroidea, containing this new taxon and the Therizinosauridae. All of this new information provided data on the affinities of the new-named therizinosauroids. Lastly, Russell and Dong concluded that these animals were actual theropods with unusually aberrant features. In 1994, Clark and colleagues redescribed the very complete skull of "Erlikosaurus" and even more theropod traits were found this time. They also validated the synonymy of the Segnosauridae with Therizinosauridae and considered therizinosauroids as maniraptoran dinosaurs. In 1997, Rusell coined the infraorder Therizinosauria in order to contain all segnosaurs. This new infraorder was composed of Therizinosauroidea and the more advanced Therizinosauridae. With this, Segnosauria became a synonym of Therizinosauria. Though some uncertainties remained, a small and feathered therizinosauroid from China was described in 1999 by Xu and colleagues, the new genus "Beipiaosaurus". It definitely confirmed the placement of therizinosaurs among theropods and also their taxonomic place on the Coelurosauria. This discovery also indicated that feathers were highly distributed among theropod dinosaurs.