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533 30 The Late Cretaceous Continental Vertebrate Fauna from Iharkút (Western Hungary): A Review Attila Ősi*, Márton Rabi, László Makádi, Zoltán Szentesi, Gábor Botfalvai, and Péter Gulyás The composition of the Late Cretaceous (Santonian) continental vertebrate fauna of Iharkút (Csehbánya Formation, Bakony, western Hungary, Central Europe) is reviewed here. In the last decade, fieldwork has produced almost 5,000 associated and isolated bones and teeth belonging to at least 24 different genera, represented by pycnodontiform and lepisosteid fishes, albanerpetontid and anuran amphibians, dortokid, bothremydid and cryptodiran turtles, scincomorphan and mosasauroid lizards, mesoeucrocodylian and eusuchian crocodilians, nodosaurid ankylosaurs, rhabdodontid ornithopods, basal tetanuran, abelisaurid, paravian, and enantionthine theropods, and azhdarchid pterosaurs. Remains of mammals are still unknown from the locality. Because of its Santonian age, the discovered fauna fills an important and still underrepresented temporal gap in the Cretaceous vertebrate record of Europe. The fauna is a mixture of Euramerican and Gondwanan forms. The first group consists of numerous taxa (e.g., hylaeochampsid crocodilians , nodosaurid ankylosaurs, rhabdodontid ornithopods, basal tetanurans), the closest relatives of which are stratigraphically much older (Late Jurassic –late Early Cretaceous) forms. These members of the fauna are suggested to be relict forms surviving in an insular habitat of the Iharkút area within the western Tethyan archipelago. At least bothremydid turtles further strengthen the immigration of Gondwanan forms into Europe during the Late Cretaceous. The supposed insular habitat of the Iharkút fauna is also supported by the presence of a peculiar small-bodied heterodont crocodilian with specialized feeding preference, and of pycondontiform fishes and mosasaurs that colonized freshwater environments. One of the greatest paleontological highlights over the last decade in Hungary has been the discovery of and the subsequent research on the Late Cretaceous (Santonian) vertebrate-bearing site near Iharkút in the Bakony Mountains of western Hungary. This is the only Mesozoic vertebrate locality in Hungary where continuous and productive excavations have been carried out, and it has provided the first evidence for several vertebrate groups (e.g., bothremydid turtles, mosasaurs, nonavian dinosaurs, pterosaurs ) from the country (Ősi, 2004a; Ősi et al., 2005; Makádi, 2005; Rabi and Botfalvai, 2006). Since its discovery in 2000, approximately 5,000 isolated and sometimes associated bones, teeth, and scales of at least 24 different taxa have Introduction Ősi et al. 534 been collected from Iharkút. The fossils represent a diverse fauna of lepisosteid and pycnodontiform fishes, albanerpetontids, anurans, turtles, lizards, crocodilians, nonavian theropod, ornithopod and nodosaurid dinosaurs, enantiornithine birds, and pterosaurs. Thanks to its abundance of fossils and diversity of taxa, the Iharkút locality is critical for understanding the history of European Late Cretaceous continental vertebrate faunas. The Iharkút locality is of further significance because of its geographic position in the western Tethyan archipelago and its Santonian age (Knauer and Siegl-Farkas, 1992; Szalai, 2005). As the only Santonian-age locality, Iharkút fills an important gap in the Late Cretaceous record of nonmarine vertebrates in Europe. In this chapter, we review our knowledge on the Iharkút vertebrate fauna. After discussing the geological and taphonomical aspects of the locality , we provide short descriptions and comparisons of the taxa identified so far at Iharkút. Finally, we discuss the paleoecological and paleobiogeographical significance of the locality and its fauna. Materials All the fossils (including plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate specimens) discovered at the Iharkút vertebrate site are housed in the Hungarian Natural History Museum (MTM) in Budapest. Except for five disarticulated but associated skeletons of the armored dinosaur Hungarosaurus (see Ősi and Makádi, 2009), all bones, teeth, and scales are isolated remains. Depending on which year specimens were collected, they would have been cataloged using any of four different types of catalog numbers (e.g., MTM V 01.49, MTM V 2003.12, MTM V 2007.30.1, and MTM Gyn/123) as a result of the different systems used over that interval in the museum. In this chapter, the abbreviation MTM has been omitted before these catalog numbers. Preparation and Conservation The fossils were prepared in the technical laboratories of the Department of Paleontology, Eötvös Loránd University, and of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Most of the material was discovered while hand-quarrying the bone-yielding beds. However, some of the smaller bones, especially the scales and teeth, were recovered through extensive screen washing of excavated matrix. Specimens were prepared with vibro tools, needles, and localized...

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