A new ornithopod dinosaur, Transylvanosaurus platycephalus
A two-meter-long dinosaur named "Transylvanosaurus platycephalus" was discovered after its skull bones were discovered in a riverbed in 2007; the findings were reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Over the years, scientists have learned a great deal about the small plant-eating dinosaur, which moved on two legs and had a strong and thick tail, thanks to the bones discovered, the longest of which was 12 cm long. Co-author Felix Augustin, a palaeontologist and doctoral student at the University of Tübingen in Germany, stated: "If the dinosaur had died and remained on the ground instead of being partially buried, the weather and garbage would have destroyed all of its bones, and we would have known nothing about it
However, the co-author claims that the bones of Transylvanosaurus platycephalus were able to endure for tens of millions of years because they were shielded by old riverbed sediments. Dinosaurs were abundant in the area, according to Augustin, who noted that "the first dinosaur there was discovered there in 1900" and that "10 kinds of them had already been recognized during digs
"The first new species of dinosaur to be identified there in the previous ten years is Transylvanosaurus platycephalus," he continued. The "island rule," which states that giant creatures alone on islands often diminish or cease growing over time while smaller animals get larger, is thought to have applied to these dinosaurs. For instance, Sauropods, the largest dinosaurs ever to exist, had an average height of 6 meters inside the archipelago as opposed to 15 to 20 meters outside