Transylvania’s new sensation: Unparalleled dinosaur site unearthed! – photos

Palaeontologists have made an extraordinary discovery in one of the world’s best-known fossil regions, the Hațeg Basin in Transylvania. Although the area has yielded dinosaur finds for more than a century, most of these have so far appeared sporadically and in lower density. The newly uncovered site, however, breaks all previous records: more than one hundred vertebrate remains were found per square metre, with large dinosaur bones literally stacked on top of one another.

The Valiora Dinosaur Research Group, comprising Hungarian and Romanian researchers, has been excavating the Upper Cretaceous layers of the basin’s western region for several years. These rocks provide a glimpse into the ecosystems of the last few million years before the dinosaurs’ extinction. The latest excavations have revealed a collection of thousands of bones belonging not only to dinosaurs but also to amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, pterosaurs and small mammals.

The site, dubbed K2 by the researchers, proved especially remarkable: in an area of less than five square metres, they documented more than 800 bone fragments – an unprecedented level of richness for the region. The detailed study was recently published in the scientific journal PLOS One.

A discovery recognisable at first glance

Gábor Botfalvai, assistant lecturer at the Department of Palaeontology at Eötvös Loránd University and leader of the research team, recalled that even during the first field survey in 2019, unusually shiny black bones were already visible in the clay banks of a stream bed. Just a few minutes of searching made it clear that an exceptional site lay hidden beneath the surface, prompting years of intensive excavation work.

Ancient floods gathered the bones in one place

Around 72 million years ago, this region had a subtropical climate. Seasonal flash floods flowing down from the surrounding highlands often caused blockages, carrying carcasses and exposed bones into the deeper parts of the basin.