Scientists are reconstructing prehistoric dinosaurs piece by piece
New skeletons of herbivorous dinosaurs, excavated by ELTE researchers, will allow the reconstruction of a rhabdodontid dinosaur. In Romania, excavations have been ongoing for five years. To date, several bone fragments have been discovered there belonging to a small herbivorous dinosaur.
Since 2019, an international research team led by colleagues from the ELTE paleontology department has been conducting excavations in Transylvania, known – among other things, as the birthplace of Count Dracula. Their finds include several vertebrate bones from the very end of the Cretaceous period (they are still being scientifically processed). The first results were published recently in the journal Cretaceous Research.
The most commonly discovered dinosaur remains belong to a relatively small species of bipedal herbivores belonging to the family Rhabdodontidae.
“Although records of closely related species of this family of dinosaurs are known on other continents such as North America and Australia, the family Rhabdodontidae itself inhabited the then European archipelago between 85 and 66 million years ago. This group of relatively small animals currently includes nine species. Some of them have been described in the last 20 years thanks to recent systematic excavations,” says paleontologist Janos Magyar.
The scientist also noted that partial skeletons now collected suggest that this family of dinosaurs may include additional unknown species and that the group may have been much more diverse than previously thought.
Now For more than a century, the Hacega-Retezat region has been known for its rock layers containing the remains of dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous period. The excavations not only revealed new finds, but also contributed to the geological structure of the basin and the understanding of the former habitats of dinosaurs.
“The area we called K2, where the new accumulation originates, is located in the westernmost part of the region, where the oldest layers of land rocks within the basin were discovered. However, these rocks differ in more than just their age from other dinosaur sites known in the region. The rocks containing the bones suggest a wet, swampy lake environment, while other sites in the basin are more representative of a floodplain community away from rivers,” summed up excavation director Gabor Botfalvai.
The bones are reported to be extremely good preserved with relatively little damage and wear over millions of years. In addition, they contain bone elements that were not previously known from any of the dinosaurs of this family.
Fossils of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period are much less common in Europe than in Asia or North America, and the remains found are mostly are incomplete skeletons or individual bone elements. Thus, complete skeletons of the rhabdodontid species are unknown.
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