Haţeg Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Haţeg Island was an island in the Tethys Sea during the Cretaceous era. It was situated in an area corresponding to the region around today Haţeg, Romania. It is believed that small sized dinosaurs lived on this island.
The Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa theorized that "limited resources" found on the island commonly have an effect of "reducing the size of animals" over the generations, producing a localized form of dwarfism. Nopcsa's theory of insular dwarfism — also known as the island rule — is today widely accepted.
About 10 species of dinosaurs are thought to have lived on the island. Among them are included:
- Hatzegopteryx thambema, a pterosaur
- Rhabdodon priscus, an ornithopod
- Telmatosaurus transylvanicus, a hadrosaur
- Struthiosaurus transylvanicus, a nodosaur
- Magyarosaurus dacus, a titanosaur
- Elopteryx nopcsai, a theropod
- Megalosaurus hungaricus, a theropod