Nick
Garland
Founder and Editor
A strange dog-sized dinosaur from Romania was once thought to be part of a group that includes Velociraptor. But a new study suggests a different identity.
Seventy million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, part of the country of Romania called Hateg was an island in an archipelago. Many unusual fossils have been found here including dwarf dinosaurs and perhaps the largest pterosaur that ever lived.
The menagerie just got a new addition: a small sickle-clawed dinosaur named Balaur bondoc. While it was first discovered in 2010, new research suggests that it is not a dromaeosaur (non-avian dinosaur) as previously thought, but an avian dinosaur. It’s a bird.
Balaur bondoc, or “stocky dragon” in Romanian, was about the same size as Velociraptor with a height similar to a large dog.