An international team led by Hungarian paleontologist Gabor Botfalvai has rediscovered a unique dinosaur site in the region of Transylvania, Romania, Hungary’s National History Museum has announced on Monday, as quoted by MTI.
The site had been unearthed for the first time more than 100 years ago, but its traced were lost during the events after the WWI.
Fragments of fossilized bones discovered in the western part of the Hateg Basin provides a unique representation of the late Cretaceous Period that preceded the sudden mass extinction of the dinosaurs, says the Hungarian museum.
The site was first mapped right before the World War I by the Hungarian geologist Ottokar Kadic, who gathered a very rich collection of dinosaur fossils, including Magyarosaurus dacus, the first species of dinosaur related to the Hungarian territory.
After the WWI, the exploration works ceased and the very few information about the precise location of the site were lost.
However, the map used at that time by Ottokar Kadic has been recently found, which enabled the researchers to identify the site exactly. The paleontologist team spent several weeks in the Hateg area, collecting over 100 vertebrate fossils, including the entire spine of a sauropod dinosaur and fragments of crocodile and turtle bones.
The scientific magazine Cretaceous Research has published a thorough description of these unique findings.