Baron Nopcsa and dinosaurs of Transsilvania

1996/03/01 Murelaga, Xabier | Nuñez-Betelu, Koldo | Pereda-Suberbiola, Xabier Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Paleontologia
• Arkeologia

Transsilvania reminds most people of the territory in which the bloody Count Dracula lived. However, few know that we have one of the most important paleontological heritage of our continent, since it is very rich in dinosaur remains. Thus, the paleontological findings made in the shade of the Karpato mountains have provided us with a large amount of information on the latest dinosaur fauna species in Europe, which lived 70 million years ago.

In Transsilvania, as mentioned earlier, the history of the discoveries of dinosaur remains is closely related to the life of a peculiar paleontologist, Baron Ferenc Nopcsa. Just over a century ago, that is, in 1895, Ilona Nopcsa, daughter of Hungarian nobles, discovered dinosaur fossils in family lands near the city of Sinpetru, in the heart of Transsilvania. This led Ferenc to his 18-year-old brother in search of paleontology and fossils. The young Ferenc Nopcsa took little time to find fossils of high scientific value in the outcrops of the H</a> river, including a full-headed hadrosauru.

Ferenc was studying in Vienna and in one of his travels he taught fossils to his prestigious professor and geologist Eduard Suess. Suess soon realized its importance. The bones come from the sediments of the Upper Cretaceous and, being the last European dinosaurs, opened the doors to investigate a topic little worked until then. The Vienna Academy of Sciences planned paleontological excavations in the “Guide” basin, but these economic problems were not carried out.

Nopcsa deduced that several dinosaurs from Transsilvania were dwarfs and believed that this nanism was related to the European island geography of the Upper Cretaceous.

Suess, in view of the student's good doing, proposed to Nopcsa herself research. Although Nopcsa had no paleontological training, he accepted the proposal and the Transsilvania dinosaur began to investigate as self-taught. Thus, in June 1899, he presented to the Vienna Academy of Sciences his first work, the research of the dinosaur skull “ahate-moko”. This opened the career of the prestigious paleontologist.

Nopcsa's paleontological work focused on the research of Transsilvania's fossil vertebrates, especially dinosaurs. In the Nopcsak Basin he organized numerous surveys and excavations. In this way, he collected the rich collection that currently exists in the Natural History Museum of London. He spent over thirty years researching the geology and paleontology of Transsilvania and wrote about twenty scientific articles on these subjects. He was the first to describe the varied fauna of reptiles, dinosaurs, turtles, crocodiles and pterosaurs, among others.

Despite finding many fossils, dinosaurs are the most abundant fauna of Hategi. Nopcsa identified five different species of dinosaurs: four herbivores (Telmatosaurus and Rhabdodon ornithopods, Struthiosaurus ankylosaurus and Sauropod titanosaurus) and one carnivore. The most important feature of these dinosaurs is their small size. For example, those of Telmatosaurus and Rhabdodon were between 4 and 6 meters long and those of Struthiosaurus were less than 3 meters long. Nopcsa deduced that the dinosaurs of Transsilvania were dwarfs and believed that this nanism was related to the European island geography of the Upper Cretaceous.

At that time, the continent we know today was only a group of islands surrounded by shallow sea. Nopcsa thought that the main factor of dinosaur nanism was the small surface of the earth and its distribution in islands. Therefore, mammals (elephants, rhinos, cervids, etc.) that inhabited the islands of the Pleistocene Mediterranean. compared to Nanism. According to Nopcsa, this isolation explains why some components of the fauna maintain their primitive characteristics.

In the article published after his death, Nopcsa proposed that the reptile fauna of Transsilvania was mixed. This mixture of fauna was formed by a primitive European fauna evolved by its part and by a specialized fauna coming from the continent of the southern hemisphere. This paleobiogeographic model did not correspond to the fijist ideas of the time and therefore did not receive approval from scientists. Nopcsa was a fervent defender of the “plate tectonics” theory proposed by Alfred Wegener.

The movement-ideas were accepted by few and, for example, paleontologists considered that migrations could only be carried out using intercontinental bridges. Nopcsa was excluded from these ideas and is therefore a pioneer in the research of the affinities of Mesozoic reptiles.

Reconstruction by Willian Fraschnik on the landscape of Transsilvania 70 million years ago. In the foreground the ankylosaur Struthiosaurus, attacked by a dinosaur butcher. In the background, the ornithopods of Rhabdodon (left) and Telmatosaurus (right). Deep down, the individuals of Magyasaurus and a sauropod titanosaur. “Dinosaures et autres reptiles fossiles de France”, Ville de Montbéliard (1992), reconstructed from the book.

After the death of Nopcsa, the vertebrate fauna of Transsilvania was hidden for almost half a century, from 1933. In the late 1970s, Romanian and foreign paleontologists and geologists resumed the excavations of the Huhezi Basin. In the excavations since then, in addition to the reptile fauna described by Nopcsa, many new fossils have been found. Among them, remains of bone fish, amphibians, lizards, carnivorous dinosaurs, hadrosaurs eggs and multituberculated mammals.

The vertebrate fauna of Transsilvania competes with the diversity of deposits for the Treviño Consortium, Catalonia, Langedo and Tests of the Cretaceous Superior. His main interest lies in knowing what were the continental ecosystems formed by dinosaurs and other beings destroyed in the final biological crisis of the Mesozoic Era.

The cause of the destruction of dinosaurs is still not entirely clear to scientists, but these reptiles from Transsilvania have helped us see that they could suffer the drastic climate changes that occurred in the Upper Cretaceous. On the other hand, since at this time the populations of European fauna are still very diversified, it can be thought that there was no decline in dinosaur species. Affirming this, it would reinforce the hypothesis that the destruction of dinosaurs was violent and not gradual.

In short, a century after its first discovery, the vertebrate fauna of Transsilvania has not yet revealed all its secrets. May all the wisdom gathered for a hundred years be a tribute to the man and the scientist who left his shadow in the fauna of the European Higher Cretaceous.