RE: Island-dwelling dinosaurs (was Re: Gargantuavis neck vertebra)

[Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

Tim Williams wrote-

> Certain large dinosaurs do appear to conform to the island rule, such
> as the titanosaur _Magyarosaurus_ and the hadrosaur _Telmatosaurus_
> from the Hateg island, as discussed by Benton et al. (2010). However,
> Benton &c also note that Hateg dromaeosaurid and troodontid theropods
> appear to be no smaller than their counterparts from North America and
> Asia. This was affirmed by the discovery of _Balaur_ by Csiki et al.
> (2011), who further noted that "predators on these [European] islands
> were not necessarily small, geographically endemic, or primitive."

Unless Cau is right and Balaur is an avialan, in which case it'd be a great 
example of a secondarily flightless and large island taxon.  As for 
troodontids, the only material is teeth from the Sinpetru beds (Grigorescu et 
al., 1985; Codea et al., 2002).

Mickey Mortimer