The truly strange looking animal above is Falcarius utahensis. It's an early, omnivorous member of the theropod clade known as therizinosaurs. Not only does it look weird, it's also a bit different from other skeletals you may have seen on the web. Join me after the break for a bit of a discussion about Falcarius, and the challenges I faced with this reconstruction.

In 1999 Jeff Wilson and Matt Carrano published an excellent paper addressing the phenomena of "wide-gauge" sauropod trackways.  For years researchers had been working to explain why sauropod trackways seemed to come in two very different flavors - some of them were very closely spaced...so much so that they would actually overlap on the midline of the track.  Other sauropod tracks seemed to show animals walking with their feet spread much further apart.

What were paleontologists to make of this?