Pronunciation: hep-TASS-tee-OR-niss
Meaning: Seven cities bird
Author/s: Harrison and Walker (1975)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Transylvania, Romania
Acta Ordinal: #253
Heptasteornis andrewsi
(Andrews' Transylvanian bird)Etymology
Heptasteornis is derived from the Greek "hepta" (seven), "asty" (city)—a nod to the Latin septem urbium, the German Siebenbürgen, and other historical names meaning "seven cities", referring to Transylvania, the lands containing the fortified Saxon cities of Bistrita, Sibiu, Brasov, Cluj Napoca, Medias, Orastie, and Sighisoara—and "ornis" (bird).The species epithet, andrewsi (an-DROO-zee), honours BMNH curator Charles William Andrews who named Elopteryx nopcsai to which its remains were initially assigned.
Discovery
The remains of Heptasteornis were discovered in the Sânpetru Formation of the Hateg Basin near the village of Szentpéterfalva (now Sânpetru), Brasov County, in what is now the Romanian region of Transylvania, by Hungarian palaeontologist Franz Nopcsa in the late 19th and earliest 20th century.
Its fossils amount to two broken tibiotarsi (the lower shin, fused to the ankle bones): the holotype BMNH A4359 (listed by Andrews in 1913 as the right, and by Harrison and Walker in 1975 as the left), and a referred specimen, BMNH A1528 (universally listed, by those who do, at least, as the left). Both fossils were originally assigned to Elopteryx nopcsai.
