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Concept
Balaur bondoc
Summary
Balaur is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period, in what is now Romania. It is the type species of the monotypic genus Balaur, after the balaur (baˈla.ur), a dragon of Romanian folklore. The specific name bondoc (bonˈdok) means "stocky", so Balaur bondoc means "stocky dragon" in Romanian. This name refers to the greater musculature that Balaur had compared to its relatives. The genus, which was first described by scientists in August 2010, is known from two partial skeletons (including the type specimen).
Fossils of Balaur were found in the Densuș-Ciula and Sebeș Formations of Cretaceous Romania which correspond to Hațeg Island, a subtropical island in the European archipelago of the Tethys sea approximately 70 million years ago. Hațeg Island is commonly referred to as the "Island of the Dwarf Dinosaurs" on account of the extensive fossil evidence that its native dinosaurs exhibited island syndrome, a collection of morphological, ecological, physiological and behavioural differences compared with their continental counterparts. Examples included island gigantism of Hatzegopteryx, island dwarfism of the titanosaur Magyarosaurus dacus, and a reduction in flight capacity in Balaur (Balaur is currently believed to be a basal avialan, a group that includes modern birds, based on phylogenetic analysis, despite being previously grouped within the dromaeosaurid dinosaurs, a group which includes Velociraptor). This reduction in flight capacity is also seen in extant island birds including the ratites and insular barn owls as well as the extinct moa of New Zealand and the extinct dodo of Mauritius.
The first small bones belonging to Balaur bondoc consisted of six elements of the front limbs. Named specimens FGGUB R. 1580–1585, these were discovered in 1997 in Romania by Dan Grigorescu, but the morphology of the arm was so unusual that scientists could not correctly combine them, mistaking them for the remains of an oviraptorosaur. The first partial skeleton was discovered in September 2009 in Romania, approximately 2.
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