Magyarosaurus

Magyar (Hungarian) lizard

• Magyaro- · Hungarian · Magyar, i.e. Hungarian
• sauros · Greek · lizard

The name means "Magyar lizard", combining "Magyar", the Hungarian people's name for themselves, with the Greek "sauros" (lizard). It honours the Hungarians because the fossils came from Transylvania, which was part of Hungary when they were first studied by the Hungarian palaeontologist Baron Franz Nopcsa. Nopcsa had first described the material as a species of Titanosaurus, and von Huene later gave it its own genus.

Named by

von Huene

Year named

1932

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Maastrichtian

Found in

Sânpetru Formation, Hațeg Basin, Transylvania, Romania

A titanosaurian sauropod, and a well-known example of an island-dwelling dwarf sauropod. The type species is Magyarosaurus dacus, originally named Titanosaurus dacus by Nopcsa in 1915. Its adult size was small for a sauropod, about 6 m long.