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
Ancestor Ancestor An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth). "Ancestor" is "any person from whom one is descended. In law the person from whom an estate has been inherited." Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer. Some research suggests