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.
According to Soma Budai, a researcher at the University of Pavia, the rocks indicate that a small lake once occupied the area, fed by sudden floodwaters. As the water’s energy dropped abruptly, bones accumulated in the delta along the lakeshore, creating the remarkable concentration revealed today.
Partial skeletons of two dinosaur species found
The site preserved not only small bones but also partial skeletons. One belongs to the Rhabdodontidae family – a roughly two-metre-long, partly bipedal herbivore already well known from the region. The other is a true scientific sensation: the remains of a sauropod (Titanosauria), the first such well-preserved specimen ever found in Transylvania. The discovery could help clarify the taxonomic position of this huge, long-necked plant-eater.
The oldest known vertebrate bonebed of the region
Zoltán Csiki-Sava, associate professor at the University of Bucharest, highlighted that the site stands out not only for its richness. It is also the oldest vertebrate accumulation of its kind ever identified in the Hațeg Basin, offering insight into the early development of the region’s dinosaur fauna. Further analyses are expected to provide an even clearer picture of how Late Cretaceous ecosystems evolved in Eastern Europe.
The research was supported by Hungarian and Romanian scientific institutions as well as several national research funding programmes.
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