Zalmoxes
Graphic representation of Zalmoxes
- Hateg Basin ( Romania)
- Zalmoxes robustus
- Zalmoxes shqiperorum
Zalmoxes is a genus of ornithopod from the Late Cretaceous, the fossils were found in Hateg Basin in Romania. Zalmoxes robustus was first described in 1902 by Baron Franz Nopcsa as Mochlodon robustus.
Features
The fossils of Zalmoxes described by Nopcsa were very well preserved. It was built to last, had a roundish hull and a relatively large head with tapered jaws. The skull was shorter and more compact than other ornithopods. It had ten to twelve teeth in the upper jaw. From the proportions of the limbs, one can conclude that Zalmoxes was a bipeder, so an ongoing two-legged dinosaur. However, the width of the hips and the body suggest that the hind legs further apart standing than other ornithopods. Overall Zalmoxes was 4 m long.
System
Zalmoxes was originally attributed to the genus Mochlodon 1915 arranged Nopcsa the findings of the genus Rhabdodon to. He later realized the close relationship to Hypsilophodon or Camptosaurus. Since little has been published to Rhabdodon in the 20th century, could not be made a detailed comparison. Recent studies led to Zalmoxes and Rhabdodon are summarized in the Rhabdodontidae family. In the cladogram they stand between Hypsilophodon and Iguanodontia.
Hypsilophodon
Zalmoxes
Rhabdodon
Iguanodontia
According to Norman, the Rhabdodontidae is dissolved and Zalmoxes is a basal Iguanodontia.
Paleoecology
Zalmoxes shared the habitat mainly with other Ornithischiern. Nopcsa described from the Hateg Basin the hadrosaur Telmatosaurus transylvanicus and Nodosauriden Struthiosaurus transylvanicus. The Hateg Basin it also held a sauropod named Magyarosaurus. All these dinosaurs were relatively small, they measured about 3 to 6 m in length.
The habitat of Zalmoxes was an island, possibly a volcanic island, which would explain the small size of the dinosaurs.
Significance of the find
Nopcsa developed in the 1920s, the theory that it has acted with the dinosaurs from the Hateg Basin to endemic, living on an island species. They are descendants of widespread, originating from an earlier period of the Mesozoic genera. After the First World War subsided paleontological studies that were only resumed in the 1970s.