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The dirty dozen: taxonomical and taphonomical overview of a unique ankylosaurian (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) assemblage from the Santonian Iharkút locality, Hungary

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Abstract

Ankylosaurian fossils are usually standard elements of Cretaceous continental vertebrate localities; however, bone-yielding horizons including more than one individual are extremely rare. Here, we present a unique assemblage of 12 partial, articulated or associated ankylosaurian skeletons and thousands of isolated bones and teeth discovered from the Santonian Iharkút vertebrate locality, western Hungary. Collected from an area of 600 m2 and from a single bone bed, this material is one of the richest ankylosaurian accumulation worldwide. The 12 skeletons are not monospecific but mostly based on the pelvic armour composition: six of them are from Hungarosaurus, two are referred to Struthiosaurus and four can be assigned to Nodosauridae indet. Sedimentological and taphonomical examinations revealed a single mass mortality event as the cause of the death and accumulation of these quadruped animals that are described here. The ankylosaur assemblage from Iharkút suggests at least a temporarily gregarious behaviour of these animals and also shows that Hungarosaurus and Struthiosaurus might live in the same moist habitat or at least preferred relatively close environments.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola and James Kirkland for their constructive comments that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank R. Kalmár (Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest) for technical assistance both on the field and in the collection. We thank Péter Gulyás for the preparation of many of the specimens, and János Magyar and Márton Szabó for taking photographs. We thank the 2001–2016 field crews for their assistance in the fieldwork. We are grateful to the Bakony Bauxite Mines and to Geovolán Zrt. for their logistic help.

Funding

Field and laboratory work was supported by the Hungarian Natural History Museum, the National Geographic Society (Grant nos. 7228-02, 7508-03) and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA T-38045, PD 73021, NF 84193). This project was supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Grant no. NKFIH, 116665); Lendület Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Grant no. 95102); the Jurassic Foundation; the Hungarian Dinosaur Foundation; the ÚNKP-17-3 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities (Grant no. ELTE/12422/16); and the Sepkoski Grants for 2018 of Paleontological Society International Research Program (PalSIRP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paleontology, Eötvös University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, Budapest, 1117, Hungary

    Attila Ősi

  2. Hungarian Natural History Museum, Ludovika tér 2, Budapest, 1083, Hungary

    Attila Ősi & Gábor Botfalvai

  3. Department of Physical and Applied Geology, Eötvös University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, Budapest, 1117, Hungary

    Gábor Botfalvai

  4. Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics, Eötvös University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, Budapest, 1117, Hungary

    Gáspár Albert

  5. MTA–ELTE Lendület Dinosaur Research Group, Budapest, Hungary

    Zsófia Hajdu

Authors
  1. Attila Ősi
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  2. Gábor Botfalvai
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  3. Gáspár Albert
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  4. Zsófia Hajdu
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Correspondence to Attila Ősi.

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Supplementary Data 1

Bone maps of the ankylosaur skeletons discovered in Iharkút, Hungary. From the 12th skeleton no bone map could have drawn due to technical and logistical problems. (PDF 1600 kb)

Supplementary Data 2

Skeletal completeness data of the ankylosaur skeletons discovered from the Iharkút locality. (XLS 53 kb)

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Ősi, A., Botfalvai, G., Albert, G. et al. The dirty dozen: taxonomical and taphonomical overview of a unique ankylosaurian (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) assemblage from the Santonian Iharkút locality, Hungary. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 99, 195–240 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-018-0362-z

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