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Background  Rhabdodontid ornithopod dinosaurs are characteristic elements of Late Cretaceous European vertebrate faunas and were previously collected from lower Campanian to Maastrichtian continental deposits. Phylogenetic analyses have placed rhabdodontids among basal ornithopods as the sister taxon to the clade consisting of  Tenontosaurus ,  Dryosaurus ,  Camptosaurus , and  Iguanodon . Recent studies considered  Zalmoxes , the best known representative of the clade, to be significantly smaller than closely related ornithopods such as  Tenontosaurus ,  Camptosaurus , or  Rhabdodon , and concluded that it was probably an island dwarf that inhabited the Maastrichtian Haţeg Island.    Methodology/Principal Findings  Rhabdodontid remains from the Santonian of western Hungary provide evidence for a new, small-bodied form, which we assign to  Mochlodon vorosi  n. sp. The new species is most similar to the early Campanian  M. suessi  from Austria, and the close affinities of the two species is further supported by the results of a global phylogenetic analysis of ornithischian dinosaurs. Bone histological studies of representatives of all rhabdodontids indicate a similar adult body length of 1.6–1.8 m in the Hungarian and Austrian species, 2.4–2.5 m in the subadults of both  Zalmoxes robustus  and  Z .  shqiperorum  and a much larger, 5–6 m adult body length in  Rhabdodon . Phylogenetic mapping of femoral lengths onto the results of the phylogenetic analysis suggests a femoral length of around 340 mm as the ancestral state for Rhabdodontidae, close to the adult femoral lengths known for  Zalmoxes  (320–333 mm).    Conclusions/Significance  Our analysis of body size evolution does not support the hypothesis of autapomorhic nanism for  Zalmoxes . However,  Rhabdodon  is reconstructed as having undergone autapomorphic giantism and the reconstructed small femoral length (245 mm) of  Mochlodon  is consistent with a reduction in size relative to the ancestral rhabdodontid condition. Our results imply a pre-Santonian divergence between western and eastern rhabdodontid lineages within the western Tethyan archipelago.

Phylogeny, Histology and Inferred Body Size Evolution in a New Rhabdodontid Dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Hungary