(ORDO NEWS) — Just as dwarf species can be found among modern giant animals, a dinosaur lived in prehistoric Europe, whose closest relatives grew up to five or six meters in length, but he himself was the size of a dog.
Scientists suggest that the reason is insular dwarfism, because 70 million years ago, modern Romania was just an island in a shallow sea.
In the Late Cretaceous , about 70 million years ago, Europe was represented by a group of islands located in a shallow tropical sea.
Not surprisingly, terrestrial dinosaurs, limited in food resources, had to significantly decrease in size, as did other famous dwarf animals – Sicilian elephants and Cypriot hippos.
One of the classic examples of insular dwarfism of that time is the fauna of Hatseg Island , where giant pterosaurs (these flying lizards were not limited to one island, which allowed them to maintain their “classical” sizes) lived side by side with dwarf dinosaurs.
Now, in addition to miniature pony-sized Magyarosaurus and small telmatosaurs , which grew no larger than a cow, a new kind of dinosaur was added that was no larger than a dog.
The new species, described by an international team of paleontologists, belongs to the rhabdodontidae family , and its closest relatives in France were six meters long, but it itself only grew to two.
The dinosaur was named Transylvanosaurus ( Transylvanosaurus platycephalus ) because its fragmented fossils were found in Transylvania , the “homeland” of Stoker ‘s Dracula.
True, unlike the legendary vampire, the Transylvanosaurus was an absolutely peaceful herbivore, the “deer” of the Cretaceous period.
Since the early representatives of rhabdodontids lived in Eastern Europe, the ancestors of Transylvanosaurus had to first reach Western Europe via temporary bridges (they arose due to sea level fluctuations and tectonic plate movements), and then return to Romania.
It is quite possible that animals overcame part of this path by swimming – after all, dinosaurs kept well on the water.
However, water could have played a far worse role in the life of this dinosaur: its bones were found at the bottom of an ancient river, so it is quite possible that the Transylvanosaurus drowned and was buried in river sediments.
Thanks to this, part of his skull was preserved, and eventually the waters of the new river exposed the bones so that paleontologists could find them.
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