Name:
Telmatosaurus
(Marsh lizard).
Phonetic: Tel-mat-oh-sore-us.
Named By: B. F. Nopcsa - 1903.
Synonyms: Hecatasaurus, Limnosaurus
transsylvanicus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ornithopoda, Hadrosauridae.
Species: T. transsylvanicus
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Around 5 meters long.
Known locations: Romania - Transylvania -
Sanpetru Formation.
Time period: Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Many individuals.
Telmatosaurus
was originally named as Limnosaurus transsylvanicus,
however after
this naming in transpired that the genus name Limnosaurus
had already
been used by the American palaeontologist Othniel Charles Marsh to name
a crocodile
(later it would actually be declared a synonym of
Pristichampsus).
The original name came about from the popular idea
of the time that hadrosaurids
like Telmatosaurus
foraged for soft
plants in swamps, though later discoveries and more modern analysis
has now cast serious doubts upon the idea that hadrosaurids like
Telmatosaurus only lived in swamps.
Unaware
of the name change, another American palaeontologist named Barnum
Brown established Hecatasaurus, though today this
exists only as a
synonym to Telmatosaurus. In addition, Telmatosaurus
was
temporarily assigned as a synonym to the dinosaur genus Orthomerus,
though later Orthomerus was established as a nomen
dubium (a genus
name founded upon poor quality fossil remains that are hard to identify
and attribute to further remains), something that saw Telmatosaurus
resurrected as a distinct genus.
Telmatosaurus
was one of the dinosaurs that lived upon Hateg Island, a late
Cretaceous island that would one day go on to form the Hateg Basin of
Romania. Many of the dinosaurs of Hateg Island grew smaller through a
process called insular dwarfism. In the simplest terms, they grew
smaller so that they did not need to eat so much food to fuel their
bodies, and so they could continue to thrive upon the limited amounts
of resources. Telmatosaurus itself also seems to
have grown smaller
through this process since it only attained a length of around five
meters. Other hadrosaurids in other parts of the world and living
upon larger land masses comfortably attained sizes around the nine to
ten meter long range, with many genera exceeding even this.
Growing
to larger sizes may have given them a degree of protection from
predators in reducing the kinds that could be a threat, but so far
Hateg Island has a distinct lack of large theropod dinosaurs such as
the large tyrannosaurs
of Asia and North America, or the abelisaurs
of South America and Africa. Danger still existed on Hateg Island
however with one good example being the dromaeosaur
Balaur.
Although
only around two meters long itself, Balaur had
four sickle claws
instead of the usual dromaeosaurid two, and legs adapted for
delivering powerful strikes. A healthy adult Telmatosaurus
may have
still been a difficult target for such a dinosaur, but smaller
juveniles as well as sick or injured adults would have been at risk.
Further reading
- Telmatosaurus, new name for the dinosaur Limnosaurus.
- Geological
Magazine, decade 4 10:94-95. - B. F. Nopcsa - 1903.
- Telmatosaurus and the other hadrosaurids of the
Cretaceous European
Archipelago. An overview. - Natura Nascosta 32: 1-55. - F. M. Dalla
Vecchia - 2006.
-
A dinosaurian facial deformity and the first occurrence of
ameloblastoma in the fossil record. - Scientific reports. - M. D.
Dumbravă, B. M. Rothschild, D. B. Weishampel, Z. Csiki-Sava, R. A.
Andrei, K. A. Acheson & V. A. Codrea - 2016.