The dinosaurs of Transylvania

The depositional environments of the Hateg localities consist principally of alluvial fans and braided rivers. The region itself was one of many volcanic islands distributed within a broad European archipelago system. The Hateg fauna is dominated by dinosaurs, in particular Telmatosaurus, Rhabdodon, and "Struthiosaurus'. A preliminary assessment of their systematics suggests that Telmatosaurus is the most primitive hadrosaurid, Rhabdodon is a euornithopodan of uncertain affinity, and "Struthiosaurus' is one of the more primitive nodosaurids. In combination, phylogenetics, tectonics, and sedimentology suggest that the distribution of these Transylvanian taxa is due to dispersal rather than vicariance. -from Authors