Without a doubt, this one of the most beautiful and sinister-looking fossils I have seen in recent years. It is the exquisitely preserved hindlimb of a brand new species of carnivorous dinosaur, Balaur bondoc, discovered in Romania and described eight days ago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This creature dates to the Late Cretaceous, a time when rising seas had swallowed much of Europe, leaving only a sprinkling of islands. Balaur stalked one of those islands.
What we’re looking at here is the business end of this beast: a foot perfectly evolved for disemboweling prey. The big toe, the uppermost in the photo, is equipped with a large sickle claw that could extend outward to slash the soft underbelly of its prey. And if this weren’t lethal enough, the toe next to it was similarly adapted, making Balaur, whose name derives from the ancient Romanian word for “dragon,” a double threat.
In all likelihood, an adult Balaur stretched six to seven feet long and it was much stockier than its famous relative Velociraptor. All this intrigues paleontologists. Island fauna are often more diminutive and primitive than their continental kin, and researchers had earlier excavated dwarf sauropods and little duck-billed dinosaurs from Late Cretaceous deposits in the region. But the burly, lethal-weapon-carrying carnivore clearly bucks the trend.
“Balaur is a new breed of predatory dinosaur, very different from anything we have ever known,” said Stephen Brusatte, a Columbia University graduate student who helped describe the new species. “Compared to Velociraptor, Balaur was probably more of a kickboxer than a sprinter.”
Upper Photo: Courtesy of Mick Ellison
Lower Illustration: Courtesy of Jordan Mallon