The newest dinosaur is something less than a pinup or poster boy, even for the Chinese and American paleontologists who discovered and named it.

A wide, waddling herbivore with the arms of Edward Scissorhands and the body of a ground sloth, Suzhousaurus megatheroidesa was recently introduced in a Chinese scientific journal by a team of paleontologists that includes Dr. Matt Lamanna, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Its formal name means "giant sloth-like reptile from Suzhou."

And that's being kind.

One of the research team members, Dr. Jerry Harris, director of paleontology at Dixie State College of Utah, refers to it as "the giant plucked turkey of doom." Another on the team led by Dr. Hailu Tou and Dr. Daquing Li of China calls it "a dinosaur designed by committee."

"It's a very unusual looking dinosaur that belongs to a strange group of dinosaurs called therizinosaurs, which are characterized by long necks capped by small heads, massive arms tipped with enormous claws, powerful hind limbs and short tails," said Dr. Lamanna, the Carnegie Museum's assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology, who joined the research team in 2004 and wrote most of the journal paper detailing the find. "And we presume it had feathers."

The 21-foot-long dinosaur, which lived 115 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous Period, was discovered in 2002 on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert in what is now Gansu Province in northwest China. Although it walked only on its hind legs like the carnivorous dinosaurs from which it evolved, it ate only plants.

"Suzhousaurus is unique because it is the oldest large member of this group of dinosaurs," said Dr. Li. "Previously, big therizinosaurs like this were known only from near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs."

Because its closest known relative is a dinosaur found only in New Mexico and Utah, Dr. Lamanna and Dr. Harris have speculated that the group may have originated in western North America and developed a larger body shortly after arriving in eastern Asia.