Zalmoxes

Zalmoxes is a genus of probable rhabdodontid ornithopod dinosaur from the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous in what is now Romania. The genus is known from specimens first named as the species Mochlodon robustum in 1899 by Franz Nopcsa before being reclassified as Rhabdodon robustum by him in 1915. In 1990, this name was corrected to Rhabdodon robustus by George Olshevsky and, in 2003, the species was once more reclassified as the type species Zalmoxes robustus. Zalmoxes represents one of the most common vertebrates of Transylvania during the latest Cretaceous period. The generic name refers to the Dacian deity Zalmoxis and the specific name robustus refers to the robustness of the remains. Another species, Zalmoxes shqiperorum, was named in 2003, but this species has since been reassigned to a separate genus of ceratopsian, Ferenceratops.

Zalmoxes

Ł. Czepiński & D. Madzia · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
RhabdodontoideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Length
3 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 44 of 44 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 44 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 3 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 4 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 4 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 4 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 4 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 4 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 4 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 4 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 4 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 4 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences84.1 Mya65.5 Mya

44 occurrences of Zalmoxes on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

44 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Sebeş — 46.04°N, 23.52°ESebeş — 46.02°N, 23.56°ESebeş — 47.38°N, 22.29°ESînpetru — 45.55°N, 22.92°ESînpetru — 45.99°N, 23.44°ESînpetru — 45.57°N, 22.93°EDensuș-Ciula — 45.62°N, 22.78°EPui Beds — 45.49°N, 23.09°EGrünbach — 47.82°N, 16.24°EŞard — 46.03°N, 23.55°EŞard — 46.03°N, 23.50°ERâul Mare — 45.58°N, 22.93°EBozeş — 47.38°N, 22.29°E

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The named rock units Zalmoxes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Zalmoxes and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Zalmoxes and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

186 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 42 sites for Zalmoxes, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

17 references

Each of the 44 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 5 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Zalmoxes

Credit
Ł. Czepiński & D. Madzia
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Zalmoxes robustum · NHMUK:PAL:PV R 3834

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itRhabdodontoidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Weishampel et al. 2003