These dinosaurs just keep getting bigger and bigger: a huge bird-like dinosaur was discovered in Mongolia's Erlian Basin. The dinosaur was not yet fully grown - paleontologists have determined that the dinosaur was only 11 years old when it died - but weighed more than 3,000 pounds. They christened the newly found dinosaur Gigantoraptor erlianensis, quite an apt name.

The Gigantoraptor erlianensis's species of dinosaur did not usually grow to be that big, especially when they haven't yet reached their adulthood. Said Matthew Lamanna, assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, "It's one thing to find a big dinosaur, but it's another thing to find a big dinosaur from a lineage that was thought to be small."

Measuring up to 16 feet tall and 26 feet long, the Gigantoraptor towered over its kin,a group of small feathered dinosaurs known as Oviraptorosaurs. It also weighed about 35 times more than an average Oviraptorosaur.

The size of the dinosaur is not the only thing that's puzzling. "It's unexpected discoveries like this that show, 'Hey we know a lot about dinosaurs but there’s still so much left that we don’t know,'" said Lamanna about the dino's strange appearances. The Gigantoraptor also had several avian characteristics that its relatives didn't have, such as longer arms and bird-like legs. The finding, which will be discussed by Xing Xu from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Lin Tan from Long Hao Institute of China, will hopefully shed light on the evolution of theropods, or two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs.

The Gigantoraptor was also to be found oddly-shaped compared to its cousins. While other large dinosaurs have thicker, shorter limbs, the Gigantoraptor had noticeably thinner, long legs. The Gigantoraptor on display in the museum also bore feathers on its tail and arms, which was based on the features of it's close relatives, the Oviraptorosaurs.