page_title: Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás
section_title: Contributions to paleobiology and geology
hierarchical_section_title: Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás / Contributions to paleobiology and geology
caption_attribution_description: Polacanthus foxii skeleton
context_page_description: Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás was a Hungarian aristocrat, adventurer, scholar, geologist, paleontologist and albanologist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of paleobiology, and first described the theory of insular dwarfism. He was also a specialist on Albanian studies and completed the first geological map of northern Albania.
context_section_description: Nopcsa's main contribution to paleontology – and hence "paleobiology" – was, that he was one of the first researchers who tried to "put flesh onto bones." At a time when paleontologists were mainly interested in assembling bones, he tried to deduce the physiology and living behavior of the dinosaurs he was studying. Nopcsa was the first to suggest that these archosaurs cared for their young and exhibited complex social behavior, an idea that did not take off until the 1980s. Because he was one of the first people to study the biology of dinosaurs, he is known as the 'father of paleobiology', even though he himself coined the term "paleophysiology" for the study of the evolution of physiology and biology.
  Another of Nopcsa's theories that was ahead of its time was that birds evolved from ground-dwelling dinosaurs, which is the theory of cursorial origin of flight. He theorized that the Proavis, a theorized predecessor of birds, was running animal with forearms lifted off the ground, which they would flap as they made a jump. The scales on its forearms would develop into feathers to aid this, and eventually allowing for flight. This theory found favor in the 1960s and later gained wide acceptance, though later fossil finds of tree-living feathered dinosaurs suggest the development of flight may have been more complex than Nopcsa envisioned. Additionally, Nopcsa's conclusion that at least some Mesozoic era reptiles were warm-blooded is now shared by much of the scientific community.
  Nopcsa studied Transylvanian dinosaurs intensively, even though they were smaller than their "cousins" elsewhere in the world. For example, he unearthed six-meter-long sauropods, a group of dinosaurs which elsewhere commonly grew to 30 meters or more, which he named Magyarosaurus. Nopcsa deduced that the area where the remains were found was an island, Hațeg Island (now the Haţeg or Hatzeg basin in Romania) during the Mesozoic era. He theorized that "limited resources" found on islands commonly have an effect of "reducing the size of animals" over the generations, producing a localized form of dwarfism. Nopcsa's theory of insular dwarfism—also known as the island rule—is today widely accepted. Additional pygmy sauropods, named Europasaurus, were recently discovered in northern Germany.
  Nopcsa also created a theory about the dinosaurs' sexual dimorphism, which he published in 1926. Among others, he thought that hadrosaurid species with the cranial crests were males and those without them were females. He paired Kritosaurus with Parasaurolophus, Prosaurolophus with Saurolophus and others. His examples were not proved to be true, but his opinion that sexual dimorphism was present among hadrosaurid dinosaurs has gained acceptance, see for example Lambeosaurus.
  Nopcsa discovered and named several species in his lifetime. In 1899 he named the species Mochlodon robustus, which he later renamed to Rhabdodon robustum in 1915. He also named Struthiosaurus transylvanicus, which he described in 1915. In 1928 he named the Teinurosaurus (meaning "extended tail lizard"). He named the turtle species Kallokibotion bajazidi, which literally means 'beautiful box of Bajazid'. The reason for this name was that the shell reminded him of Bajazid's arse.
  Nopcsa was also an important geologist. Indeed, Nopcsa was one of the first scholars to study the geology of the western Balkans, particularly northern Albania.
caption: Historical Polacanthus foxii skeletal restoration by Franz Nopcsa
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