Vörös A. szerk.: Fragmenta Mineralogica Et Palaentologica 11. 1983. (Budapest, 1983)
This list shows, with its rich faunistical context (more than 70 species of vertebrates), a very detailed picture about the contemporaneous animal assemblage of the time span of the corresponding territory. The age of the fauna is also unambiguously Uppermost Lower Pleistocene, belonging to the Templomhegy-Phase or rather to the Nagyharsányhegy-Phase. The picture of a simple faunal list of vertebrates is, however, very imperfect, without the numerical data of each species and especially as regards the differences between the statistical composition of various elements of different layers. Those will be analysed in detail in the future. In this paper I want only to refer to the climatic significance of this fauna as a whole. The layers 2 to 24 contained an, among the animal assemblages of the Villány-Hills, in species as well as in the number of individuals unusually rich mollusc fauna. By the courtesy of E. KROLOPP who works on this material I may give in this place some results of his preliminary investigations. The first issue of his eximinations is the fact that in the lower levels sporadically but constantly occur besides the continental forms some aquatic species. This observation has great significance because a connection with the rich and stratigraphically well évaluable succession of aquatic mollusc faunas originating from borings in the Hungarian Great Plains is possible. Ranging the members of the continental snail-fauna among ecological groups and showing the changes in their percentile composition in different levels, we can distinguish four sections in the series: in the first one (No. 2-9) the xerotherm species predominate, in the second one (No. 10-16) there are more forms which required humid and cooler climate (e. g. Vallonja tenuilabris ) the latter ones prevailing absolutely in the next phase over the xerotherm forms (No. 17-21). The snails of the fourth section (No. 22-24) not all of them are identified as yet however, a preliminary investigation speaks for the presence of more species preferring warmer and drier conditions. Noteworthy is the fact that the graph, constructed on the basis of the changes of the mollusc fauna from level to level resembles stikingly the one of the "vole graph" (see Fig. 2), with that difference that the dominance phase appears one level earlier in the latter than in the former. This observation speaks for the fact that the changes in the vole-fauna are not accidental ones, otherwise it may help us in the interpretation of the ecological requirements of the extinct vertebrate species. Coming back to the preliminary, chiefly climatical analysis of the vertebrate fauna as a whole, we may say the following: snakes are present in great quantities in all layers and the strictly Mediterranean sheltopousik (Ophisaurus ) is sporadically present through the whole profile. Among the birds the ancestor of the Black Grouse (Lyrurus partium ), all recent relatives being confined to the trans-Palearctic temperate boreal climatic zone, occurs in all layers in which a minimal bird material is present. Among the otherwise sporadical bird finds the presence of woodpeckers ( Picus and Dendrocopus ), as well as among the small mammals that of dormice ( Glis, Dryomimus and Muscardinus ) indicate an arboreal vegetation more developed than during the time span of the deposition of other localities in the Villány-Hills. In the latter ones forest dwellers are the greatest rarities. In all localities of the studied territory which contain larger mammals, antelopes predominate among the Ungulata, - in locality Somssich-hegy No. 2. there are only cervids present, showing similarly a more forestal vegetation, just as the above mentioned other faunistical elements. Most of the other mammals are extinct species, their ecological significance seems to be difficult to define (see the analysis of the mollusc fauna above ! ). All things considered we deal with an ecologically multicoloured faunistical picture of a climatical change from a steppe nature towards a forestal one and later back to the first one, which may be the corresponding period of a subsequent northern glacial wave. At this point we reach the problem of the climatical significance of the lemming of this locality. As we have seen from the faunal list as well as from the interpretation of some elements contained in it, in spite of the loess nature of the greatest part of the sediment