Zalmoxes was first known from numerous fossils found in Transylvania, which were named as the species Mochlodon robustum by Baron Franz Nopcsa in 1899. The species name referred to its robust build.[1] In 1915 Nopcsa renamed the species as Rhabdodon robustum, amended by in 2003 by David B. Weishampel, Coralia-Maria Jianu, Zoltan Csiki and David B. Norman. Weishampel et al. (2003) published a paper on new remains from Romania, which they found to represent a new species. They found R. robustus was sufficiently different from Rhabdodon, and thus named the new genus Zalmoxes for the former. The genus refers to the Dacian deity Zalmoxis (sometimes spelled Zalmoxes), who travelled to ancient Romania and ended up being deified as a god. In addition, Weishampel et al. named the new specimens Zalm