Travels in Transylvania | The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Authors

Beata Pokryszko and Robert Cameron

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Transylvania probably conjures up visions of Dracula for most people, but there is more to it than vampires or the notorious Vlad the Impaler. It is the northern and western part of Romania, bordered by the curve of the Carpathians, first south from Ukraine, then turning west to the Serbian border. The mountains are quite high (up to 2600 m), and the lower slopes are forested and very similar to those further north. It connects the fauna and flora of northern Europe to the much richer environment of countries bordering the Mediterranean. Romania as a whole has a rich land snail fauna (c. 300 species including slugs), with many species not found further north.

Having worked together for many years examining forest snail faunas in Central Europe, we have long had an itch to see what lay beyond our south-easternmost samples, in the tiny bit of Ukraine that holds that bit of the Carpathian Mountains where the range turns south into Romania. We had found a steady turnover of snail species from west to east along the northern Carpathians; what would happen as we turned south? Several possible visits had to be cancelled for one reason or another, but in 2009, at last, we were able to make the trip, thanks to the help from our Romanian colleagues Ioan ‘Meo’ Sirbu and Voichita Gheoca, both working at the University of Sibiu. They were with us for some of our journeys, and gave us a firm base in Sibiu; indeed we were given great hospitality.

Meo did all the essential things before we set off, especially getting permits for collecting in the numerous National Parks that we wanted to visit. Then we set off on what was to be a 3000 mile, one-month round trip to and from Wrocław in Poland. The car was essential, but the roads do not encourage fast driving! From Sibiu we visited first the forests in the Lotrului Mountains just to the south, where Meo was running a field course. We were roped into the teaching (figure 1), and also got the students to sample snails. They picked up the idea very quickly, and after a short session we were presented with very many specimens, including the smallest species. Among our finds here were two species new to us: Spelaeodiscus triarius (figure 2), a small species supposedly restricted to caves, and Cochlodina cerata (figure 3), also unfamiliar to us northerners. At least we could identify these ourselves. Some others were mystifying, and we only identified Laciniaria exalta (figure 4) with help from Miklos Szekeres. Miklos also dealt with the immensely variable Clausilia dubia (figure 5). It is still hard to believe these two specimens are the same species. Most of the species unfamiliar to us were clausiliids.

Then to Predeal, near the Bucegi National Park, and our first taste of limestone. Meo absolutely declined to come with us, and we soon saw why: this is the top tourist resort, and the area was packed (queues for the ski lifts to the summits certainly deterred us from taking the easy way up). Fortunately, not many others disappear into the forests. This was the only place where we encountered Alopia livida, (figure 6) a remarkable dextral clausiliid. There are many endemic Alopia species, but they tend to occur in the high mountains, and not in the lower forests. Besides the dextral Alopia, there was another surprise on the coiling front, the abundant, sinistral enid Mastus venerabilis (figure 7).The faunas were very rich. After that, and still on our own, we went west to the Retezat National Park, again limestone in places, but all rather high up, and rather dominated by managed conifer forests. This is really off the beaten track and definitely self-catering! (figure 8).

After that, Voichita was able to join us, and we visited the Apuseni National Park, the famous Bicaz gorge (limestone again) where we found Vertigo angustior atypically sitting in a forest, several other places in between, and finally the Maramures Mountains in the north, only a few miles away from our earlier sampling in Ukraine. Indeed our sampling took us right up to the border (figure 9), escorted by a very smartly-dressed border guard complete with umbrella (it was raining). From there it was a short journey to Voichita’s family home near the Hungarian border, saying goodbye, and starting the long drive home.

Altogether we sampled 43 sites, running along most of the mountain chain, but stopping short of the Banat region close to Serbia (famous for its rich fauna and flora). What did we find? There were 83 snail species in our collections overall. Sites held between 20 and 40 species, very similar figures to those found further north. Most species were familiar to us, and one feature to emerge is that these forest faunas are very similar to those from further north, and there is no obvious trend for north–south change. Our 83 species are a small proportion of the total Romanian fauna and few of them are endemic. This is in marked contrast to Poland or Britain, where sampling a few forests can give you more than 50% of the nation’s snail fauna. There are many endemic species in the region, but most are open rock or high mountain dwellers. Nevertheless, there are some impressive species we do not see further north.

The largest of these is Drobacia banatica (figure 10). It is known from warm and humid Pleistocene deposits more to the north-west: Slovakia, The Czech Republic, Poland and Gemany, as a component of the so called banatica fauna. Now, it is restricted to parts of Hungary, Ukraine and Romania. In places, it was abundant, but it is missing from some parts of Romania for no obvious reason. Even those species that should be familiar sometimes look “odd”, like the very large Helix pomatia (front cover). We are told that they are all really that, but there are many described subspecies.

We only scratched the surface. While there are books on the fauna, especially Grossu’s monographs, there must be much more to discover about distributions, and probably some undescribed species too. Malacologists are thin on the ground (Voichita is the only one we know of working on land snails). Hungarians take an interest, but there is plenty of scope for others, and, by our experience, making the local contacts is fun and very worthwhile.