Talk:Balaur bondoc

Behavioral section outdated? Claws may actually be used to hold down prey

There are some indications that the behavioral description may be outdated. Scientists have determined lately that dromeasaur's claws were most likely for holding down large prey while they ate it alive, like modern birds of prey. This theory was put forth by researcher Denver Fowler and is based on the shape of the bones in the feet. See http://www.livescience.com/17485-velociraptors-killer-claws.html Netdragon (talk) 03:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Updated! The whole 'slashing' argument has been on the rocks for a while now. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Even though the paper certainly mentions this in regards to dromaeosaurs on the whole, I worry that it's a little WP:ORish to extend these conclusions to Balaur specifically, since its features are so aberrant (and Balaur is not mentioned in the Fowler paper). Someone really should study the foot morphology of Balaur specifically in the context of RPR context to see if some information about its predatory behavior (or lack thereof) can be gleaned. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:55, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I found a press release where Fowler specifically mentions Balaur in reference to his new study. I guess I'll include that. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Arboreal Adaptations?

I was wondering if the double retractable claws and stocky build of Balaur might lend itself to hypothesis that these adaptations may in fact be an indication of an arboreal life style? I wonder if studies that show retractable claws on dromaesaurs function well as load bearing structures for climbing are particularly pertinent to this conclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Latenlazy (talk • contribs) 16:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I have heard a few people toss around the idea that the enlarged hallux might be a climbing adaptation, perhaps for rocks or cliffs as well as trees. However, until a reputable source publishes this hypothesis specifically in the context of Balaur, it shouldn't be included in the article. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

A few minor issues

As an interested amateur, I'm excited to see this new dino taxa. I did a quick proof read of the article and have a few questions that someone more knowledgeable should address in the article.

1. The Description section meantions 'nonavialan', should this be 'nonavian'?
2. In the section about the Island effect (Foster's rule) is says that the effect states that island species evolve in 'unusual ways'. But isn't Foster's rule only about size?
3. After this there is a sentence that states 'Predictably, ...' It should be made clear what is predicted and by what. I assume it is Size is predicted by Foster's rule, but it is not 100% clear in the article.

Ashmoo (talk) 11:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

While your last two points seem valid, the term nonavialan is correct. The avialae are a clade that includes birds and their closest dinosaurian relatives. The point being made is that while Balaur is a theropod, it is somewhat more distantly related to birds than are other known theropods. --Khajidha (talk) 12:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Khajidha is right about the term "nonavialan."

As for your last two points: while the original paper does make it clear that the island isolation contributes to the animal's bizarre features, it's probably bordering on original research to apply this to Foster's Rule specifically. As such, I've reworded that part of the article to hopefully clarify it. Let me know if it's still problematic at this point. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 15:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I linkified this, so hopefully people who think avialan is a typo will look twice.μηδείς (talk) 01:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

That's great, thanks. Ashmoo (talk) 08:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Foster's rule?

The link itself to Foster's rule using the alias "island effect" is still inaccurate - the rule applies to size, with small species becoming bigger and larger species becoming smaller. What is apparently meant here is genetic drift and the population bottleneck and founder effects, which are proportional to population size, which is smaller on islands. μηδείς (talk) 16:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

From the article on drift:

In natural populations, genetic drift and natural selection do not act in isolation; both forces are always at play. However, the degree to which alleles are affected by drift or selection varies according to population size. The statistical effect of sampling error during the reproduction of alleles is much greater in small populations than in large ones. When populations are very small, drift will predominate, and may preserve unfavorable alleles and eliminate favorable ones (this means purifying selection has a stronger effect in species with a larger effective population). Weak selective effects may not be seen at all, as the small changes in frequency they would produce are overshadowed by drift.

Your points are sound. Do you have a specific suggestion for how to change the wording in that part of the article? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

In the meantime, I simply changed the foster's rule link text to read as Foster's rule rather than the island effect. You are quite free to improve it further, though, or suggest improvements for me to make here. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping to trick somebody else into changing the text for me, since I spent a good ten minutes trying to write a short accurate sentence or two and couldn't compose anything good. :) I'll see what I can come up with.μηδείς (talk) 23:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I have thought about this a little further. The bottom line is, what do the sources say? In order for this to be a case of Foster's rule, we would have to know that the taxon from which Balaur evolved was a larger mainland variety. We can't just go by raptors in general, since they vary from 23 feet to 16 inches if my memory serves right. So, what does the source say? Indeed, what is the source? I am going to tag it as citation needed. Then, if I am able to read the source on line, I will see how else this can be described.μηδείς (talk) 01:04, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The source I was gleaning this information from is the original paper by Csiki. The way in which he goes about describing the island effect is a bit complex though. If you'd like to see the paper in its entirety I can email it to you if you've got an address listed publicly somewhere. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that would be great. I have enabled the email function so you can click the link on my user page. Please do send the document. I am going to remove the citation needed tag as unnecessary. Also, as an aside, I have noted that according to the article, Velociraptor is listed as the closest sister group and the length of Velociraptor is given as the same - 2m. μηδείς (talk) 03:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I have received the PDF, find it quite helpful, and hope to respond shortly.

Yes, my edit is not very elegant, but it gets the relevant facts in. Especially that Csiki et al mention Foster's rule but sya this is actually not a case. I'll work on it more tomorrow night.μηδείς (talk) 05:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

It's still an improvement, we'll get it into a good state soon. Thanks for your help with this. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 05:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, the Csiki paper doesn't actually mention sauropods specifically, but its citations do. Should we cite one of those in the article? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

They mention herbivorous dwarfing. You are right, they didn't say "sauropod" in the text- I filled that in from memory. Of course it can't hurt to add the refernce. We should link to said dinosaurs if there is an article as well. Way past bedtime.μηδείς (talk) 06:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

References

Names of discoverers?

Both Mátyás Vremir and Zoltán Csiki look like Hungarian names, yet the article mentions them as Romanians. Or is this just because of the English language, where there is no separate word for "from Romania" and "of Romanian ethnicity"? --131.188.3.20 (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

They are Romanian citizens, that actually speak well Romanian. Einstein was a German scientist, not a Jewish one. Nergaal (talk)

There is a very large Hungarian minority in Romania. One could simply describe them as "of Romania" which implies residence/origin, but not ethnic descent. And, actually, Einstein was (in English) a Jewish scientist, as well as a German one, but not an Israeli.μηδείς (talk) 01:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Readability and accessibility

Please, write the introduction (at least) in language that does not require a specialization in paleontology to understand.

Every single time there has been a new dinosaur discovery in the last year (at least), the Wikipedia article is more or less unreadable to lay persons. I point this out. I make suggestions for revision. (See Talk:Saadanius.) I do revisions. (I am a lay person with an interest in paleontology.) Why is it necessary to repeat the same lesson over and over again? Why are the paleontology experts writing only to themselves? This is contrary to the intention of Wikipedia. Zaslav (talk) 06:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to point out specifically which things you have a problem with that you think could use an improvement in clarity or simplicity and we'll discuss them. To be honest I fail to see anything in the introduction that wouldn't be accessible to laypersons, but I'm certainly open to suggestion. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

pronunciation

Can someone who speaks Romanian advise how the name is pronounced? Is Balaur three syllables, with the vowels of "gala tour"? Or is it two syllables like "allower" as in "one who allows"? If anyone knows the IPA that would be even better. μηδείς (talk) 02:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I corrected the IPA. Sound files are here and here.

The stress in English is different, according to the summary of ref 8, which I can't access. I can't imagine a stressed la being pronounced as anything other than "lay", so I made a guess as to the full pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

see the reference [1] for the stress. As for pronounciacion, the last part of "balAUr" sounds like the sound in OUch. Nergaal (talk)

Actually, per that ref, it's ba-LA-ur. No diphthong. — kwami (talk) 06:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

So I was right the first time. (Sorry, this is the first time ever bothering with phonology.) Nergaal (talk) 09:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The recording has three syll. w final stress. I don't know why, but the dict. is prob'ly more reliaB. — kwami (talk) 09:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I concur that the recording had a weak final stress. But I agree that the dictionary listing is more reliable. I suspect that the recording is either mechanical or suffers from elicitation distortion. μηδείς (talk) 13:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

new lead in progress

Balaur bondoc is a newly discovered and uniquely specialized species of carnivorous (theropod) dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Romania. It was described by scientists in August 2010, and was named after a balaur, a dragon-like creature in Romanian folklore. It is known from a single partial skeleton representing the type species Balaur bondoc, meaning "stocky dragon", in reference to its build, having been described as a "beefy version of the predatory Velociraptor".

Seventy million years ago, world sea levels were higher, and the location where its fossils are found, was an off-shore part of the European archipelago called Haţeg Island. Unlike its other relatives within the dromaeosaur family, which includes Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and the four-winged Microraptor gui, this raptor had not just one but two large, retractable, sickle-shaped claws on each foot, and its limbs are proportionally shorter and heavier than those of its other relatives. Given these and 20 other derived traits, the new genus Balaur was erected for it. As with other dinosaurs from Haţeg, such as Magyarosaurus, a dwarfed sauropod known from Romania, its aberrant features are argued to show the effects of its island habitat on its evolution.

I hope this flows better and is easy for laymen to follow.μηδείς (talk) 02:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I commend your effort, but I really don't think that there's all that much wrong with the intro as it is. There are a few really small things that could some work (like this sentence: "Unlike related dinosaurs, it had not just one but two sickle claws (large retractable claws) on each foot, on both the first and second toes.") but I honestly don't think it needs a full rewrite.

I'd hate to do away with nice words like autapomorphies in favor of something like derived traits, which is less specific. The whole point of Wikipedia is to educate people, and that's why we link to the page on autapomorphy if people are confused by the word. In the absence of any suggestions from the guy who found it hard to understand (even after I asked him), I feel like you're going to a lot of effort here without much of a benefit. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think you'd object, or I would not have been so bold. Was autapomorphy in the lead? I like the flow much better. I held back on the technical language so as not to scare the children. How about we keep the new layout but you add in the technical stuff you want? (Writing for myself I am all for using the technical stuff.)μηδείς (talk) 03:06, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Autapomorphy wasn't in the lead, but I erroneously assumed you were planning on replacing it with derived traits further down. Anyway, I think it looks good. Would you mind if I reword a thing here and there? I still don't like the "not one but two" sickle claws thing, though I haven't come up with something better yet. Also, why do we have two (almost) identical refs? 1 and 4 look like they're citing the same paper with slightly different formatting, not sure when that happened but I think they should be condensed into one. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

here are the new

Balaur bondoc is a newly discovered and uniquely specialized species of carnivorous (theropod) dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Romania. It was described by scientists in August 2010, and was named after a balaur, a dragon-like creature in Romanian folklore. It is known from a single partial skeleton representing the type species Balaur bondoc. Having been described as a "beefy version of the predatory Velociraptor", its name is Romanian for 'stocky dragon', in reference to its build,

Seventy million years ago, world sea levels were higher, and the location where its fossils are found was an off-shore part of the European archipelago called Haţeg Island. Unlike its other relatives within the dromaeosaur family, which includes Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and the four-winged Microraptor gui, this raptor had not just one but two large, retractable, sickle-shaped claws on each foot, and its limbs are proportionally shorter and heavier than those of its other relatives. Given these and 20 other derived traits, the new genus Balaur was erected for it. As with other dinosaurs from Haţeg, such as Magyarosaurus, a dwarfed sauropod known from Romania, its aberrant features are argued to show the effects of its island habitat on its evolution.

and old leads

Balaur is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous (ca. 70 million years ago) that lived in an area roughly corresponding to present day Romania. It was described in August 2010, and was named after a balaur, a dragon-like creature in Romanian folklore. It is known from a single partial skeleton representing the species Balaur bondoc, meaning "stocky dragon", in reference to the build of its bones, which were shorter and heavier than those of other dromaeosaurs. Unlike related dinosaurs, it had not one but two sickle claws (large retractable claws) on each foot, on both the first and second toes. It has been popularly described as a "beefy version of the predatory Velociraptor".

for comparison. Note that I did not remove autapomorphy - eeverything that was in the old lead is still in the new lead.μηδείς (talk) 03:11, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I like your corrections. No, I was not going to change autapomrphies, it is one of my favorite words, and anyone who ventures past the lead will have to brave the consequences. The "not one but two" is a snappy and concise way of explaining why the critter is aberrant. I was being sloppy with the references, figuring they could be fixed afterward. BTW, do you speak Romanian? Can you advise on the pronunciation if so?

That I most definitely do not! Do you think it'd be appropriate to ask someone involved in the project Romania to help out? [2] Many of them appear to be citizens of Romania. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, given it is an uncommon word I doubt I will be able to find a pronunciation of it on line. Can you post the request? μηδείς (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure thing. [3] -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to write phonetically, but Romanian is many of the times literally reading the letters; in this case it actually is. The only thing is that the accent is on the second vowel in both words (i.e. second a, second o). Nergaal (talk) 03:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Should be something like this /baˈla.ur bon'dok/ . Nergaal (talk) 03:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so vowels and stress similar to the American English pronunciation of "garage door, lone toke"? (Not the British pronunciation of garage as if it were spelt garridge.)μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the stress is on the final vowel of each word in Romanian, according to the sound files linked above. But evidently ref 8 says the stress is on the la in the generic name, which is presumably the English pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I took it Nergaal was opining as a Romanian speaker? Where is this sound file you are referring to, Kwamikagami? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 22:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Previous section, where you asked for the pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 23:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I would say that is stressed on the last syllable μηδείς (talk) 00:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Due to the dipthong, the stress is on the second "a", not the "u". Nergaal (talk) 02:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I am making my own judgment based on listening to the soundfile to which Kwamikagami linked, which is in my opinion, three separate vowels, like "Allah or".

Yes, it is 3 syllables. For stress placement see balaur and bondoc. Nergaal (talk) 23:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Other than the use of the nonsensical "of Romania" phrase, the new lede is an improvement. I've taken it out again. If someone wants to add a correct statement to the lede, that's fine, but it's totally unnecessary as the Romanian connection is mentioned several other places in the article. 131.107.0.81 (talk) 22:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

A dromaeosaur dodo?

It should be noted somewhere in the article that the majority of the scientific community now believes that this animal was an herbivore. The hip was extremely swept back, like a therizinosaur, the hands were greatly reduced, the animal was overall bulkier than your average small predator, and the "extra sickle claw" was not hyperextensible or held off the ground. It's overwhelmingly likely that the enlarged dewclaw was instead used to support the animal's heavy, plant-digesting body. If you don't believe me, check the blogosphere, specifically DinoGoss and Theropoda. 67.170.217.51 (talk) 05:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

As the author of DinoGoss, I can tell you for sure me and the guys mentioned at Theropoda don't constitute the "majority of the scientific community" by a long shot. This is just an hypothesis we've been kicking around, and it's not peer reviewed or tested. I suppose it could be mentioned, as we've cited blogs before, but it shouldn't be given undue weight compared to the actual publication. If so, I'd go with Andrea's blog, since it goes into more anatomical detail. MMartyniuk (talk) 06:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Information about this was just added to the article. I think it's a good piece of information and I think it's valuable to educate more people about the idea, but I'm not sure if Andrea Cau's blog fits the necessary criteria for self-published notability as per WP:SELFPUBLISH. I'm not going to be a stickler about it, though; I think the information probably belongs in the article. Any thoughts? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 08:58, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• Slightly related, may the restorations we have be too dromaeosaur like? FunkMonk (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

EME and the transilvanian museum is not the same!

The transilvanian history museum and the transilvanian museum society is not the same. http://eme.ro/index.jsp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.79.98.32 (talk) 12:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

All the above edit says is that the museum and the society are not the same thing, which is granted, but does not invalidate the usefulness of the link. Further, according to the romanian article the National Museum of Transylvanian History is associated with the Transylvanian Museum Society.

Alternative published hypothesis

See here: Balaur is a flightless bird --4u1e (talk) 15:46, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Images

There are a few issues regarding the images. First, we have two restorations on Commons, but both seem to be too dromaeosaur like, and have been removed.[4][5] I think the first one could pass as a non-dromaeosaur maybe? Another issue is that some of the diagrams in the new free paper[6] contains tracings of diagrams published in older, non.free papers. So I'm not sure if they can be used as they are, or if maybe those made especially for this paper should be extracted separately? FunkMonk (talk) 08:48, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Emily's might just need a shorter tail, but otherwise it is fine. I don't think NT's is fixable, but don't take my word on it. Do you think Jaime's original or the published skeletal is better? IJReid ^discuss 17:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Tail length is entirely hypothetical, so that shouldn't be a problem. I think the skeletal in the paper is less misleading, as it shows exactly what the known parts are. FunkMonk (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

It would indeed be preferable to extract the drawings of the Balaur material, which avoids copyright problems and highlights the really relevant fossils. As regards the "dromaeosaur-like" images, we have to remember that dromaeosaurs looked just like birds, so the suggested placement in the Avialae should have no consequences for Balaur's looks. There is a tradition of giving "primitive" species a savage plumage and a "reptilian" head but it is misguided. Emily's image is just fine in this respect. That it shows a kicking movement illustrates the original hypothesis of Balaur being an apexpredator. Even if this hypothesis would now be outdated, the image would thus still be useful for historical reasons. But there hardly can be any consensus yet on this issue. Of course, any new image would be welcome :o).--MWAK (talk) 08:11, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-romanian-dinosaur-balaur-seems-to-be-a-flightless-bird/

http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2015/06/dodoraptor-returns.html--179.57.17.247 (talk) 09:36, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I had read this :o). It shows that very nice new images exist. It does not imply that older ones are useless, certainly not as illustrations of older views. Also, one should keep in mind that new research might be the latest word on a subject, but is rarely the last word.--MWAK (talk) 13:52, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

In any case, what makes our older image "more dromaeosaurian" than these new ones? As for the depiction of kicking, erm, kicking is still possible even if it also climbed. Modern birds can kick. And remember Naish's point: "A point we also make in the paper is that an avialan identification of Balaur doesn’t make much difference as goes how we imagine the look of this animal. After all, abundant fossil evidence has demonstrated that dromaeosaurids and the members of other paravian (and maniraptoran) lineages were extremely similar in life appearance to archaic birds. As I like saying, were you to go back in time and look at live, early members of Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae, Avialae and other maniraptoran lineages you almost certainly wouldn’t be able to ‘spot the bird’; in other words, to recognise members of the one lineage that was destined to survive the K-Pg event and give rise to a dynasty of thousands and thousands of species."[7] FunkMonk (talk) 14:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm intending to release one of my new recons for the new research under CC in the coming days, just need to find the time... Never mind, decided to go ahead and do it. Not sure where in the article would be best for it, so I'm happy to let other editors decide. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balaur_bondoc_as_avialan.jpg -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 02:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

And wow again!--MWAK (talk) 05:44, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I also updated the size chart to reflect Cau et al 2015, based on the first sketch I did for them. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:37, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

While I'm here: is there any interest in potentially including my main illustration for the researchers in this article? The main advantage is that in addition to the updated version of Balaur, it also shows a highly-researched example of accurate Hațeg basin environment, which could give readers a better sense of Balaur's ecological position. If it would make sense to include here, I'd be happy to release a lower-res version under CC. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Heheh, I think there would be quite some interest... Thanks! FunkMonk (talk) 19:25, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Well alright: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balaur_in_Hateg_environment.jpg Others are free to decide where, if anywhere, it would be appropriate in the article. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:13, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Cool, I've moved the images a bit around... FunkMonk (talk) 20:31, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the picture, Emily! Funkmonk, I wondered: were those images in the PeerJ paper really tracings or were they simply drawn by someone looking at the original diagram? I guess in that case they wouldn't be covered by the copyright of the original image.--MWAK (talk) 04:41, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

You mean freehand? I think the results would be more skewed, I'd assume the authors would want to be as precise as possible... FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Should this be redeirected?

Most Dinosaurs articles refer to their genus name. I think we should rename this or something to Balaur and put bandoc in the spcies section.

Examplae Title Balaur(Dinosaur)

That's not the policy, what you suggested was literally ditched months ago 128.189.206.244 (talk) 22:12, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Balaur bondoc and baby sitting on branch.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)