Dr. Nagy I. Zoltán szerk.: Fragmenta Mineralogica Et Palaentologica 9. 1979. (Budapest, 1979)

The Biostratigraphical Position of the Fauna Kormos (1.911) published the fauna from Kőszeg as a Boreal microfauna unknown so far from Hungary. According to him the locality is the southernmost representation of those Austrian typical glacial faunas which contain Dicrostonyx. He couldn't find however the exact position of this fauna within the Pleistocene. On the base of the material collected by Noszky Kretzoi thought the fauna to be older than Wj because the few finds known by him represent conspicuously big statured specimens. For example though the jaw of the Glis is of the same size as that of the recent animal yet its femur seemed to be more bulky even at the same length-measurement. This is why he raised the possibility that it would be an unknown species. The hamsters are big, too - he determined them as Cricetus cricetus maior - because their dimensions reach the bigness of the most robust giant hamster from Brassó-Fortyogóhegy lived at the end of the Mindel (the length of the row of teeth is 10. 3 mm). Even with the full knowledge of the material it is difficult to determine the age of the finds of Seybold quarry because in Western Hungary, in the subalpine region only one Pleistocene microfauna is known, that is from Gencsapáti (Kordos, 1976). The age of the Gencsapáti fauna is the second half of the Riss/Würm interglacial, biostratigraphically it can be placed into the Tokod or perhaps the Subalyuk faunal stage. According to its general aspeot the fauna can be undoubtedly placed into Kretzoi' s (19 69) 4. (unnamed) faunal complex which corresponds to the Upper Pleistocene. This is verified by the appearance of certain species, first of all vole species typical of the Würm. In the older Pleistocene one cannot find such specialized voles and in that case older faunal elements like Lagurus

, Allocricetus, etc. should have present in the fauna. As for the biostratigraphical position of the fauna within the Upper Pleistocene the following observations can be useful. The fauna is separated from the recent one by some Pleistocene, cold indicating species, like Microtus oeconomus, M. gregalis, M. nivalis

, Dicrostonyx, Ochotona

, Lepus ti- midus and Rana mehelyi

. Most of them existed during the whole Upper Pleistocene so they haven't any exact chronological value. Only one of them, Dicrostonyx, appeared already in the Middle Pleistocene at Uppony and Tarkő (Jánossy, 1969) but it is characteristic rather of the Würm. It is unknown from the Riss/Würm Interglacial (Süttő) as well as from the beginning of the Würm (Varbó, Subalyuk) but at Tokod which indicates the cold peak of the Würm I. (Jánossy, 1970/71) it is already present. In the warm phases of the Würm e.g. in Istállóskő (Jánossy in Vértes, 19 65) is missing but during W II and III. , biostratigraphically in the "unnamed" and Pilisszántó faunal stages its often large-scale appearance is conspicuous. Consequently Dicrostonyx indicates the end of the Würm. The fauna is rather inconsistent because beside the arctic species it contains in a considerable quantity such species like Crocidura

, Glis

, Apodemus and Pity my s which up till now have been unknown from our cold faunas. All the four genera existed in the Süttő and Varbó faunal stages but they are missing from the biostratotype faunas of the Subalyuk and Tokod stages. The Apodemus also can be found sporadically in the "cold faunas" like in the one at Gencsapáti just in the vicinity of Kőszeg and in the yellow layer of the Bivak Cave together with Dicrostonyx

. Although these occurrences can prove that Crocidura and Apodemus could exist in Hungary during the Würm, yet their finds are so scattered that their appearance cannot be considered as characteristic of the period. The Glis is present only in the Süttő and Varbó stages and it is entirely missing in the Cold Würm. According to a single uncertain find it appears together with the Dicrostonyx in the upper "yellow layer containing rodents" of the Remete rock-shelter (Kormos, 1914). We do not know Pitymys from the Würm at all. The contraposition of the above-mentioned cold indicating and warm indicating species shows that the age of the fauna can be determined first of all not on the basis of the appearance of the arctic species (e.g. Dicrostonyx, L. timidus

) existing in the fauna anyway in a small number but on the basis of those micromammals which give the bigger mass of the fauna. They are absent in the Würm or only hardly can be traced in it and they.became numerous only in the Holo'cene. The lower time limit of the age of the fauna found in the Seybold quarry is the stratotype of the Pilisszántó faunal stage and the 11-17 layers of the Jankovich cave the fauna of which is not studied in details till know. It is clearly separated from our Holocène faunas by its many Pleistocene faunal elements therefore according to our present biostratigraphical