Ferenc Nopcsa and his Magyarosaurus

PART 27 Ferenc Nopcsa and his Magyarosaurus 

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Auf geheimer Mission…

Our second Austro-Hungarian Paleontologist albeit this time from the Hungarian side of the empire, Ferenc Nopcsa aka Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás was born in 1877 in Transylvania in modern day Romania. His interest in Dinosaurs started early on since bones were discovered on his family’s estate. He moved to Vienna to study paleontology. There he became the founder of paleobiology since he was one of the first scientists to take ecological and biological factors into the equation to deduce the living behavior of Dinosaurs. He made an interesting discovery when he worked with Dinosaurs from Transylvania, in that all of them seemed to be a lot smaller than their counterparts elsewhere. Among them was the only 5 – 6m long Sauropod Magyarosaurus. He concluded that the area was once an island (Hateg Island) and that this correlated with the size of the animals – the theory of insular dwarfism was born. Additionally Nopcsa was among the forerunners to promote the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

But also his life outside of Paleontology was quite exciting. He was very interested in the costumes and traditions of Albania and even worked together with Albanian nationalist to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire. When WWI broke out Nopcsa volunteered to join the army and worked as a spy for Austria Hungary. When his country lost the war he lost all of his possessions, since they were now part of Romania, and moved back to Vienna. There he shot himself in 1933.