Three dwarf dinosaur eggs stolen from Romania and smuggled to Italy have been recovered and brought back to Romania, the investigators have announced. The eggs will most likely be on display at the Antipa Museum in Bucharest.

The three eggs were stolen around 2004-2005 from the archeological site in Tustea- Hateg, Hunedoara county, in the center of Romania. The thief sold the eggs to an Italian collector who kept them in a warehouse together with other 11,000 artefacts. The Italian Police found them during a search.

Romanian archeologists initially announced the theft of two dwarf dinosaur eggs, but three were found in the Italian's warehouse, the third originating from the same Romanian site.

Only one guard watches over the archeological site in Central Romania, at Tustea, a place also nicknamed 'the dinosaur kindergarten' after the dinosaur eggs discovered there.

Dwarf dinosaurs lived on Romania's current territory some 70 million years ago, during the Mesozoic era, in the Cretaceous period. These dinosaurs, unique in the world, were the size of horses, according to scientists.

Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com