Information

Haţeg (pronunciation in Romanian: /'hɑː.tseɪɡ/; German: Wallenthal; Hungarian: Hatszeg) is a small town in Hunedoara County, Romania with a population of 12,507. Ţara Haţegului is the region around the town. The Haţeg Island was an island during the Cretaceous era with peculiarly small dinosaurs. The fabulous Hateg County Dwarf Dinosaurs are Europe's best known dinosaurs. They are telling the world one of the most fascinating episodes of the Earth's History, the great extinction of dinosaurs at the end of Cretaceous. But in the case of Hateg County, there is more to be told about rocks and fossils.

The history of the Hateg County is spanning more than 300 million years of history when the Earth surface was completely different than today. The rocks and fossils found now were formed in places and environments like coral reefs, volcanic island in the Tethys Sea populated by dinosaurs and other reptiles, primitive mammals and birds, or continental areas covered by Ice Age glaciers.

Baron Franz Nopcsa, a pioneering Balkan paleontologist, published articles about these Mesozoic era archosaurs on Haţeg Island. His studies led to his theory of insular dwarfism, the notion that "limited resources" on small islands can lead to a down-sizing of the indigenous vertebrate animals.