- Haţeg Island
Haţeg Island was a large offshore island in the
Tethys Sea during theCretaceous period. It was situated in an area corresponding to the region around todayHaţeg ,Romania .Maastrichtian fossil s of small-sizeddinosaur s have been found in the erstwhile island's rocks.It was formed mainly by
tectonic uplift during the earlyAlpine orogeny , caused by theAdriatic Plate 's NW movement across thePiemont-Liguria Ocean Verify source|date=July 2007 towards the end of the Cretaceous. There is no real present-day analog, but overall, the island ofHainan (off the coast ofChina ) is perhaps closest as regards climate, geology andtopography , though still not a particularly good match. Thevegetation , for example, was of course entirely distinct from today, as was thefauna .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 ofinsular dwarfism — also known as theisland rule — is today widely accepted.About 9 species of dinosaurs, and one species of pterosaur are thought to have been indigenous to the island. Most of these animals were smaller versions of mainland megafauna, which became smaller due to island dwarfism, although this is certainly not the case for Hatzegopteryx which, being one of the biggest pterosaurs ever, is an example of
island gigantism . Among them are included:
* "Hatzegopteryx thambema", apterosaur
* "Rhabdodon priscus", anornithopod
*"Telmatosaurus transylvanicus", ahadrosaur
*"Struthiosaurus transylvanicus", anodosaur
*"Magyarosaurus dacus", atitanosaur
*"Elopteryx nopcsai", atheropod
*"Megalosaurus hungaricus ", a theropodSee also
*
Dinosaurs of Romania
*Franz Nopcsa
*Insular dwarfism
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