Wellnhoferia

Wellnhoferia Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 150 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Archaeopterygiformes
Family:	Archaeopterygidae
Genus:	Wellnhoferia Elżanowski, 2001
Species
W. grandis Elżanowski, 2001 (type)

Wellnhoferia is a genus of early prehistoric bird closely related to Archaeopteryx. It lived in what is now Germany, during the Late Jurassic. While Wellnhoferia was similar to Archaeopteryx, it had a shorter tail and its fourth toe was shorter than in Archaeopteryx. Andrzej Elżanowski (2001) of the Institute of Zoology of the University of Wrocław, Poland, determined the differences resulted from a "phylogenetic reduction rather than individual variation."

Wellnhoferia (orange) and seven specimens of Archaeopteryx compared to a human in scale

The type specimen is the Solnhofen Specimen of Archaeopteryx (BSP 1999). Discovered in the 1960s near Eichstätt, Germany and described in 1988 by Wellnhofer (as a specimen of Archaeopteryx) it is currently located at the Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum in Solnhofen. It was originally classified as a Compsognathus by an amateur collector.

Although Elżanowski found significant differences between Wellnhoferia and Archaeopteryx, one later study (Mayr et al. (2007)) found Wellnhoferia was a specimen of Archaeopteryx lithographica. Senter and Robins (2003), however, supported Elżanowski's naming of a new genus.

References

• Elżanowski, A. (2001): "A new genus and species for the largest specimen of Archaeopteryx". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 46 (4):519–532 HTML abstract

External links

• The Paleobiology Database (Search Fossil collection records for taxon name Wellnhoferia)