THE MISIDENTIFICATION
1954. All anyone had were the claws — each one longer than a grown man's forearm, unlike anything else on record. Size alone was enough to call it: A KILLING WEAPONTOO SLENDER TO KILL.
It took decades of closer study to actually look at what the claws were made of. Longest on any land animal ever found, and some of the most fragile — too thin to punch through bone. More likely built for pulling branches than fighting anything.
So the most feared claws in the fossil record might never have drawn blood. Therizinosaurus — armed to the teeth, and maybe completely harmless.
The scariest-looking weapon in paleontology, and it may have just eaten plants.