The Tunjice Hills (; sl, Tunjiško gričevje) are a group of hills around

Tunjice Tunjice (; german: Theinitz''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 30.) is a dispersed settlement in the Tunjice Hills ( sl, Tunjiško griče ...

in western Slovenia.

Geography

The southern border of the Tunjice Hills extends from

Kamnik Kamnik (; german: Stein''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, pp. 26–27. or ''Stein in Oberkrain'') is a town in northern Slovenia. It is t ...

in the east to

Komenda Komenda (; german: Commenda''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, pp. 26–27.) is a village in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia. It is t ...

in the west, where the hills meet the

Ljubljana Basin The Ljubljana Basin ( sl, Ljubljanska kotlina) is a basin in the upper river basin of Sava. It is the most populated area in Slovenia and it is metropolitan area of Ljubljana. Its main rivers are the Sava, the Kamnik Bistrica and the Ljubljanica ...

. The hills rise to the north toward the

Kamnik–Savinja Alps The Kamnik–Savinja Alps ( sl, Kamniško-Savinjske Alpe) are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps. They lie in northern Slovenia, except for the northernmost part, which lies in Austria. The western part of the range was named the Ka ...

Paleontology

In 1997 a fossilized

coprolite A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology. The name is de ...

layer was discovered in the Tunjice Hills. It is approximately 13 million years old, dating from when the

Pannonian Sea The Pannonian Sea was a shallow ancient lake, where the Pannonian Basin in Central Europe is now. The Pannonian Sea existed from about 10 Ma (million years ago) until 1 Ma, during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, when marine sediments were dep ...

covered the area, and was probably deposited by dolphins and other vertebrates. The layer has preserved the fossilized remains of insects, fish, plants, snails, and even jellyfish. Between 2005 and 2007, the site yielded seahorse fossils that have been classified as new species: ''

Hippocampus sarmaticus ''Hippocampus sarmaticus'' is an extinct species of seahorse, found in 2005 in the coprolitic horizon of the Tunjice hills Lagerstätte in Slovenia, along with the related ''Hippocampus slovenicus''. Taxonomy The horizon dates 13 million years b ...

'' and '' Hippocampus slovenicus''. Other finds in the hills include a caudal vertebra from what is believed to have been a

toothed whale The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. Seventy-three species of t ...

.Mikuž, Vasja, & Davorin Preisinger. 2012. Vretence iz miocenskih plasti Tunjiškega gričevja. ''Folia biologica et geologica'' 53(3): 51–59.

References

External links

Tunjice Hills on Geopedia
Hills of Slovenia {{coord, 46, 17, 17, N, 14, 34, 2, E, type:mountain_region:SI, display=title