Border police seized fossil material worth tens of thousands of euros, our museum staff participated in identification
The Brod-Posavina police presented a valuable seizure of fossil remains, approximately 15 million years old, confiscated from a 46-year-old smuggler at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a car with Slovenian license plates.
The smuggler attempted to enter Croatia through the Stara Gradiška border crossing on 17 April in the evening hours.
“After suspicion arose that goods were being smuggled in the vehicle, police and customs officers jointly inspected the suspicious vehicle and found a large quantity of fossils, various animal remains for which the owner had no documentation,” Kata Nujić, spokesperson for the Brod-Posavina police, told Hina.
Fossils of priceless paleontological value
On Wednesday, at the border crossing, the smuggled fossil remains were identified and recorded by representatives of the Croatian Natural History Museum in Zagreb and the Museum of Brodsko Posavlje in Slavonski Brod, and the seized fossils will be temporarily stored in the Zagreb museum.
Dražen Japundžić, head of the Geological and Paleontological Department of the Croatian Natural History Museum, said that after examination they confirmed that this was “very valuable, precious fossil material of priceless value to paleontologists”.
The material represents remains of fossil fauna from the Middle Miocene geological period, about 15 million years ago. The most common remains are teeth and jaws of fossil proboscideans, genera Gomphotherium and Prodienotherium, rhinoceroses (Brachypotherium), pigs (Conohyus), beavers, deer, cattle and other animals.
Paleontologists also identified several specimens of fossil amphibians, namely salamanders.
Police continue the investigation
“The specimens have not been cleaned or prepared, so they probably contain other fossil species that currently cannot be identified. This is very valuable and rich fossil material and will certainly provide us with new scientific knowledge about life, climate and the environment in Earth’s ancient past in the area of Central Europe,” said Japundžić.
He estimated the value of the seized fossils at several tens of thousands of euros, taking into account the insurance value of similar exhibition specimens that come to the Croatian Natural History Museum.
These are fossil remains from the Middle Miocene period, around fifteen million years old, which most likely originate from the Gračanica site near Bugojno in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is an active lignite coal mine, where during exploitation a stratigraphic layer is sometimes reached in which preserved fossil remains of animals that lived at that time appear.
“The material we removed is very interesting and numerous. It consists of around 80 items related to bone elements, mostly fossil mammals. The best-known finds are proboscideans, specifically the genera Gomphotherium and Prodeinotherium, but there are also fossil remains of rhinoceroses (Brachypotherium), pigs (Conohyus), beavers, deer, cattle, horses and several specimens of amphibians from the salamander group,” said Japundžić.
According to him, this is very interesting and precious fossil material, both for curators working in museums and for scientists specialized in individual animal species from Earth’s past.
The fossil material is diverse and important because it tells us a great deal about the paleoenvironment and paleoclimate of that geological period, and also indicates migration routes of the animal world from the areas of present-day Africa and Asia toward Europe.
The find is also important because a very large number of fossil finds were found at a single locality.
“In my career, I have never seen such a large number of finds from the same locality in front of me. There are generally no such finds in Croatia. Something similar occurred in the Jelenska clay pit near Kutina, when Ina-Naftaplin exploited bentonite clay there for cementing its wells. However, they stopped exploitation in the 1990s, and since then there have been no similar finds in our country,” Japundžić emphasized.
The discovered specimens have not been cleaned, so they probably contain other fossil species that cannot yet be identified.
The seized material has great material value, which in this case is measured in tens of thousands of euros, making it interesting to illegal traders who try to distribute such items to collectors in the European Union.
However, above all, it represents a major positive contribution to the geological, paleontological and museum professions, and to natural history in general.
“This is very valuable and rich fossil material that will certainly give us new scientific insights into life, climate and the environment in Earth’s ancient past in the area of Central Europe,” concluded Japundžić.
The police are continuing the investigation to determine all the circumstances under which the fossil remains reached the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is assumed that the seized fossils originate from an active coal mine near Gračanica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Text taken from Vecernji.net.