Time to learn a new dinosaur species’ name discovered by Hungarian researchers

Hungarian palaeontologists have identified a new plant-eating “duck-billed” dinosaur species, based on fossils excavated in the Hațeg Basin. The discovery is notable not only because it adds a new species to Europe’s Late Cretaceous record, but also because the team managed to recover a rare, associated partial skeleton – a type of find that is exceptionally uncommon in this region and often the key to making a confident identification.

The researchers say the new species strengthens the idea that the so-called “Hațeg Island” ecosystem – a prehistoric island environment that existed roughly 70 million years ago near the end of the Cretaceous – was more diverse than previously assumed.

Years of fieldwork and thousands of fossils

The excavation programme has been running since 2019, led by researchers from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), the Hungarian Natural History Museum (MNMKK), the Supervisory Authority for Regulated Activities (SZTFH) and the University of Bucharest. Their work focuses on sites near the small settlement of Valiora, where palaeontologists have uncovered multiple fossil-bearing localities.

Over the years, the team has collected several thousand bones dated to the end of the Cretaceous, building a growing picture of the vertebrate fauna that once lived in the area. Among the most common dinosaur remains are members of Ornithischia, the “bird-hipped” group that includes many well-known herbivores. The newly identified animal belongs to the hadrosauroid line – a broader family of duck-billed dinosaurs.

A rare find: a partial skeleton that “hangs together”

According to the research team’s account, the site that produced the new species was first recognised in 2022, helped by the exposure created by a newly built forestry road. While mapping the local geology in search of fossil-rich layers, the team noticed dark grey sand deposits similar to bone-bearing strata known from other Hațeg Basin sites. Excavations there proved unusually rewarding.

Instead of finding only isolated bones, the researchers uncovered a partial skeleton from a single hadrosauroid individual, with multiple elements that belong together. This matters because in the Hațeg Basin, associated skeletons are extremely rare, and hadrosauroid fossils are often represented by single, scattered bones that can be hard to assign to a species with certainty.

Why it had been “hidden” for so long

Hadrosauroid remains from Transylvania have been known for more than a century, and many finds were routinely attributed to the species Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, described over 130 years ago. But the team behind the new discovery says that assumption could persist partly because the best diagnostic material – especially skull bones combined with vertebrae and limb elements – is seldom recovered in one piece.