Anguirus first appears in the Showa continuity as brown with yellowish spines, these colors are later changed in the Millennium series to light gray, with orange spikes and horns.

In his first appearance in Godzilla Raids Again, it is explained that Anguirus is capable of moving incredibly fast in spite of his bulk due to his brain extending into his chest and abdominal areas, allowing him to react more quickly.

Two of his attacks involve jumping backward to impale his opponents on his spiked carapace in Godzilla vs. Gigan and his vice-like bite; the most famous example of the latter being when he faced King Ghidorah in Destroy All Monsters and latched onto one of King Ghidorah's necks, his grip holding firm even after the space monster took flight.

In Godzilla: Final Wars, Anguirus had the ability to curl himself into a ball and propel himself forward with tremendous speed.

[3] Anguirus was also originally planned to breath an atomic ray in Godzilla Raids Again, and this was recorded in the official novelization of the film.

AB-PT pictures, an American distribution company, was producing their own movie The Volcano Monsters shortly after the release of Godzilla Raids Again.

Anguirus has been played by multiple actors throughout the Godzilla movie series: According to the English subtitles of Godzilla Raids Again, Anguirus, or "Angilas" as he was referred to in the film, was an Angilosaurus, a fictional dinosaur that lived from 150–70 million years ago and is described as "one of the stronger dinosaurs that lived in the prehistoric era."

Additionally, it is described in a textbook by Polish world animal specialist Plateli Hondon as "one of the few creatures that had a thorough hatred for war-like predators".

In the English-dubbed version of Godzilla Raids Again, Gigantis the Fire Monster, the name of the dinosaur is pronounced ""ANG-will-o-Saw-rus," and given the sub-moniker "Killer of the Living".

In the English dub of the 2004 film during Anguirus' confrontation with the battleship Karyu, one crew member erroneously calls it "the Angweenus."

In the prologue for the film Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the corpses of Anguirus and Rodan make a cameo appearance, having been killed by a bio-weapon created by the Chinese military.

This is expanded upon in the prequel novel Godzilla: Monster Apocalypse, in which Anguirus and Rodan attacked Beijing before they were killed by the bio-weapon, Hedorah.

Additionally, two other members of Anguirus' species appear, with one attacking South Africa and the other killed by Godzilla in Los Angeles.