.............Transylvania is best known for its dwarf dinosaur fossils. But here are some very interesting sites where sharks fossils have been found . One of the most rich in fossils is Turnu Rosu area. (Beware: "rich" means in Romania 3-5 teeth after a long day of search). Here, one of the first paleontologist that described fossil sharks in Europe, Johan Ludwig Neugeboren found in the period prior to 1850 a big amount of specimens out of which he described 63 species from 8 genera in 1850-1851. Unfortunately this paper work was not known except in the Austro-Hungarian empire because in those times Transylvania was a province of that empire. Some pieces from Turnu can be found today in Viena Museum. Another rich area is Cluj county. The first paper about Cluj area sharks belongs to Pavay (1871) who notices the presence of this fossils in Plesca Valley. In 1894 another important work belonging to Koch refers to sharks fossils, listing the found species.

.............In our days a very small number of paleontologits approached this group of fossils, but since the 90's a scientist from Sibiu, dr.Rodica Ciobanu, is trying to fill in this gap. In 2002 an excellent book appeared: "Paleogen Selachii from Romania" (original title-"Selacienii paleogeni din Romania"), a book which is crownement of this authoress work. Today more then 30 species of sharks and another few of bony fish (teleostei) are described after a well-based research (view table).

...........I want to thank to dr. Rodica Ciobanu for her advice along the years since I have been collecting fossils but also to some new acquintances from the world wide web as , Pieter & Guy from Belgiansharkteeh and Jim Bourdon from Elasmo.com