A new latest Cretaceous pleurodiran turtle (Testudinata: Dortokidae) from the Haţeg Basin (Romania) documents end-Cretaceous faunal provinciality and selective survival during the K-Pg extinction

A new ornithopod dinosaur, Transylvanosaurus platycephalus gen. et sp. nov. (Dinosauria: Ornithischia), from the Upper Cretaceous of the Haţeg Basin, Romania

“…The recently described Pareisactus evrostos from the uppermost Cretaceous of Spain was recovered in a sister-taxon relationship with Rhabdodon priscus and thus likely also belongs to the first, western lineage of rhabdodontids (Párraga and Prieto-Márquez, 2019). A similar dichotomous east-west distributional pattern has also been suggested for several other continental vertebrates, including turtles (Rabi et al, 2013; Csiki-Sava et al, 2015; Augustin et al, 2021), mammals (Csiki-Sava et al, 2015; Gheerbrant and Teodori, 2021), hadrosauroids (Csiki-Sava et al, 2015), and eusuchian crocodyliforms (Narváez et al, 2016; Blanco and Brochu, 2017; Blanco, 2021). In general, high degrees of regional faunal differences and endemism, including the east-west disjunct distribution pattern described above, have often been reported for the vertebrates living on the Late Cretaceous island archipelago of Europe and were usually linked to the geographic isolation of the different emergent landmasses (for an overview, see Csiki-Sava et al, 2015).…”

“…In fact, the continental uppermost Cretaceous deposits from the Haţeg Basin host one of the richest terrestrial vertebrate faunas known from the entire Upper Cretaceous of Europe (Nopcsa, 1923a; Grigorescu, 1983; Weishampel et al, 1991; Csiki-Sava et al, 2015, 2016). The latest Cretaceous vertebrate assemblages from the Haţeg Basin include fishes, amphibians, several species of kogaionid multituberculate mammals, at least two distinct turtles, squamates, at least four different crocodyliforms, azhdarchid pterosaurs, as well as nodosaurid ankylosaurs, rhabdodontid and hadrosauroid ornithopods, titanosaurian sauropods, non-avian coelurosaurian theropods, and birds (e.g., Nopcsa, 1900, 1902a, 1923b, 1928, 1929a; Huene, 1932; Rădulescu and Samson, 1986; Weishampel et al, 1993; Rădulescu and Samson, 1996; Buffetaut et al, 2002; Weishampel et al, 2003; Martin et al, 2006; Csiki et al, 2010a, 2010b; Martin et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2011; Vasile et al, 2013; Csiki-Sava et al, 2015, 2016; Venczel et al, 2016; Venczel and Codrea, 2016; Csiki-Sava et al, 2018; Vremir et al, 2018; Augustin et al, 2021). Generally, the vertebrate occurrences can be grouped into distinct taphonomic categories, ranging from isolated bones and teeth to associated and partly articulated remains, to microvertebrate accumulations, or else to small, mainly lenticular multitaxic bonebeds, the so-called ‘fossil-pockets’ (Nopcsa, 1902b; Grigorescu, 1983; Csiki et al, 2010c).…”

Reappraisal of the braincase anatomy of the ornithopod dinosaurs Telmatosaurus and Zalmoxes from the Upper Cretaceous of the Haţeg Basin (Romania) and the taxonomic reassessment of some previously referred specimens

“…Stratigraphically, the Sibişel Valley section represents the stratotype section of the Sînpetru Formation and has been estimated to be early to early late Maastrichtian in age (Therrien 2004;Panaiotu and Panaiotu 2010). The Sibişel Valley section includes many classical Nopcsa localities and has ever since yielded rich and diverse vertebrate assemblages comprising fishes, amphibians, turtles, squamates, crocodyliforms, pterosaurs, dinosaurs and multituberculate mammals (Nopcsa 1900(Nopcsa , 1902a(Nopcsa , b, 1904(Nopcsa , 1923(Nopcsa , 1929Andrews 1913;Grigorescu 1983;Csiki and Grigorescu 1998;Csiki et al 2010b;Martin et al 2014;Csiki-Sava et al 2016;Augustin et al 2021). The fossil vertebrate remains often show complex taphonomic histories and can occur isolated, associated and partly articulated or in local multitaxic concentrations, so-called fossil pockets (Nopcsa 1902b;Grigorescu 1983;Csiki et al 2010b;Augustin et al 2019).…”

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of the Island-Dwelling Kogaionidae (Mammalia, Multituberculata) in the Uppermost Cretaceous of Transylvania (Western Romania)

“…These taxa include a series of relictual groups such as turtles (Nopcsa, 1923;Gaffney and Meylan, 1992;Sterli and de la Fuente, 2013;Pérez-Garcia and Codrea, 2018), crocodyliforms (Martin et al, 2010;Tennant et al, 2016;Venczel and Codrea, 2019), and hadrosauroid dinosaurs (Weishampel et al, 1993). These relicts were accompanied by isolated paleobiogeographical outliers such as madtsoiid snakes (Folie and Codrea, 2005;Vasile et al, 2013) as well as borioteioiid (Folie and Codrea, 2005) and possible teioiid (Venczel and Codrea, 2016;Codrea et al, 2017a) lizards; gigantic flying pterosaurs (Buffetaut et al, 2002;Vremir, 2010; and a series of endemic taxa of frogs (Venczel and Csiki, 2003;Venczel et al, 2016), madtsoiid snakes (Vasile et al, 2013), dortokid pleurodiran turtles (Augustin et al, 2021), azhdarchid pterosaurs (Vremir et al, 2013;Solomon et al, 2020), and rhabdodontid dinosaurs (Weishampel et al, 2003). The island-related features of the latest Cretaceous Transylvanian vertebrate assemblage were first noted long ago by the pioneering paleontologist and paleobiologist Franz Nopcsa (Nopcsa, 1915(Nopcsa, , 1923Weishampel et al, 1991;Benton et al, 2010;Weishampel et al, 2010), and were synthesized most recently by Csiki-Sava et al (2015).…”