Peter Wellnhofer Peter Wellnhofer Peter Wellnhofer (born Munich, 1936) is a German paleontologist at the "Bayerische Staatssammlung fur Paläontologie" in Munich. He is best known for his work on the various fossil specimens of "Archaeopteryx" or "Urvogel", the first known bird. Wellnhofer's other work includes "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs". "Wellnhoferia", a bird closely related to "Archaeopteryx", or a species of the Urvogel itself, was named in his honor. In 2007 a special meeting of pterosaur experts in Munich was dedicated to Wellnhofer, describing him as "the foremost authority on pterosaurs for the last four decades." The meeting produced a festschrift in
Specimens of Archaeopteryx totaling 1,756 Solnhofen specimens - was purchased the following year. In this way the London Museum came to acquire a truly important collection of fossils, many of them quite rare or undescribed at the time. Wellnhofer remarks that it was likely not the price that kept the Bavarian State Paleontological Collection in Munich from acquiring the fossil, but rather the hesitating attitude of Andreas Wagner which delayed any action. Following Wagner's death in 1861, negotiations with Häberlein certainly would have been all the more difficult. In the wake of this important transaction of the first "Archaeopteryx" body fossil, many German