Zalmoxes

Say it: zal-MOHX-eez

Name means: “named after Zalmoxis, a god in ancient Dacian mythology”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersLate Cretaceous

Zalmoxes was a small, plant-eating dinosaur that lived on an island called Hateg, in what is now Romania. It walked on two legs, had a beak, and ate tough plants. It was about the size of a small car, but some were even smaller!1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Fossils found in Romania, in the Hateg Island region, including the Sânpetru, Sebes, and Densuș-Ciula formations.1 3

Food

Plants1 3

Length

2 to 2.9 m1

Subadults about 2 to 2.4 m, adults up to 2.5 m, one unnamed species up to 2.9 m

Weight

45 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Zalmoxes had a slow growth rate and a long growth period, which is different from many other dinosaurs.1

It lived on an island, and scientists think it might have been smaller than its relatives because of island dwarfism, though some think it was already small.1

Zalmoxes had a large triangular head and a beak, which helped it eat tough plants.1

Fossils of Zalmoxes have been found in Austria and France too, not just Romania.3

One species of Zalmoxes, called Z. shqiperorum, was later reclassified as a different type of dinosaur, a ceratopsian, not an ornithopod.1

Zalmoxes was one of the most common vertebrates in Transylvania during the latest Cretaceous period.1

AI-made picture of Zalmoxes — An AI-made picture of how Zalmoxes might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Zalmoxes was a dwarf dinosaur because it lived on an island.

Truth: Scientists now think Zalmoxes was already small, and its larger relative Rhabdodon had island gigantism, while a smaller relative Mochlodon had island dwarfism.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Zalmoxes
Named by: Weishampel et al. 20033
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Rhabdodontoidea3
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian to Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Sebeş, Sînpetru, Densuș-Ciula3
Countries: Romania, Austria, France3
Fossil records: 44 in the Paleobiology Database3
Also known as: Onychosaurus (older names now counted as the same animal)3
Discovery: The first fossils were named Mochlodon robustus by Baron Franz Nopcsa in 1899. In 2003, scientists renamed them Zalmoxes robustus after studying new remains.1 2
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Zalmoxes was a dwarf species or just naturally small, and how it is related to other similar dinosaurs.1

Where the facts come from

Zalmoxes (en.wikipedia.org)
Osteology and phylogeny of Zalmoxes (n. g.), an unusual Euornithopod dinosaur from the latest Cretaceous of Romania (tandfonline.com)
Zalmoxes in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.