German Paleontology Trivia Quiz

Answer: Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx, sometimes called Urvogel in Germany, is one of the world's first birds. It lived during the Jurassic era and had many reptilian features, but also notably had feathers. These features have made it a much-celebrated transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds. If you've ever seen pictures of Archaeopteryx, you've probably seen the Berlin Specimen.

It's the well-preserved fossil with its neck arched back, found by a farmer who sold it to buy a cow. Archaeopteryx skeletons are so rare that each one has an individual name or label.

Answer: Spinosaurus

Ernst Stromer was a man ahead of his time. Unlike most people of his era, he believed that humans had come from Africa, and eventually made expeditions to Egypt searching for fossils to support his hypothesis. Instead of mammals, he found dinosaurs. In 1911, at the Bahariya Oasis, his expedition unearthed fossils of dinosaurs, the most famous of which was Spinosaurus.

It is believed (though not with absolute certainty) to be the largest carnivorous dinosaur to have ever lived. Sadly, Stromer's fossils were destroyed during bombing in World War II. Additional fossils were discovered in subsequent decades.

Answer: hominid

Neander Valley, or Neandertal in German, caused quite a stir in 1856. In a small cave, quarry workers discovered fossils of Neanderthals, hominids extremely similar to people. The species was named in 1864 after the valley, and numerous Neanderthals have been found across Europe and western Asia since then. Neanderthal DNA has been sequenced, and interestingly enough, has been found in many European people, suggesting that we interbred with them at some point in the distant past.

The time and cause of their extinction has been highly debated.

The particular cave that the Neanderthals were discovered in during 1856 has long since been destroyed.

Answer: Eocene

What is now known as the Messel Pit was once a deep lake that formed over an area that was volcanically active during the Eocene, long after dinosaurs went extinct. The toxic gases are believed to have been the cause of the deaths of the numerous animals that have been found there.

After it was opened up as a quarry, fossils were discovered in the Messel Pit; they tend to be stunningly well-preserved. Incredibly enough, the Messel Pit almost became a landfill, but an outcry dissuaded those plans, and it instead became a UNESCO site in 1994. Amazing fossils have continued to be found there since then, such as that of a pregnant Eurohippus horse in 2014.

Answer: Louis Leakey

The Leakeys are famous for their hominid discoveries in eastern Africa. Less famous is Hans Reck, who was actually the first person to discover hominid fossils in Olduvai Gorge. Hans had done several excavations in Tanzania, and in 1913 tracked down a site where Wilhelm Kattwinkel had found some fossils earlier.

His expedition was more thorough, and he himself unearthed a skull from the gorge. He took the fossils back to Germany and published his findings, which were dismissed as at the time they were far older than the believed origins of humans.

After World War I, Hans and Louis made a joint expedition back to Olduvai in 1931, where they found tools and more fossils.

Answer: Compsognathus

Compsognathus is a small dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic era. It was the first theropod discovered and one of the smallest dinosaurs that's ever been discovered. The first Compsognathus discovered was a juvenile acquired by Joseph Oberndorfer in 1859.

It was described and named by Johann Wagner later that year. The fossil that was discovered is very well-preserved and came from Bavaria, in an area where Archaeopteryx fossils have been discovered. Over a century later, a grown adult was discovered in France, and between the two fossils, the species has been described in great detail.

Answer: petrified forest

Chemnitz is a city in eastern Germany near the Czech Republic border. Petrified wood was discovered there as early as 1737 during excavations. Since then, hundreds of trunks and a few fossil animals have been unearthed at the site. The forest dates to the Permian Period, about 291 million years ago, and included tree ferns, seed ferns, and long-extinct gymnosperms.

A volcanic eruption snapped the trees and buried them in hot ash. The German Paleontological Society declared the forest to be 2010's Fossil of the Year.

Answer: eagle

Julius von Haast was a 19th Century geologist. In 1858, he was hired by a company to research the suitability of New Zealand for German immigrants; after doing so, he returned several times to explore its geology. He conducted several digs that unearthed moa bones, and in 1871 he was the first person to describe the eagle that is now named after him.

It weighed nearly twice as much as modern eagles, and had a wingspan similar to that of the wandering albatross. Despite being considerable larger, moas were eaten by Haast's eagle, and it became a casualty of coextinction when they died out.

Answer: Giraffatitan

Werner Janensch was a 20th Century paleontologist whose most famous expeditions were to the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania. He discovered several new dinosaurs, including ones that were originally classified as Brachiosaurus. After his death, a detailed analysis concluded that the 'Brachiosaurus' he discovered was different enough to be considered a different dinosaur altogether, and was subsequently named Giraffatitan. One specimen of Giraffatitan is housed at the Museum für Naturkunde, and has been listed by Guinness World Records as the world's tallest mounted skeleton.

Answer: dogs

Dog fossils have been found in tombs at Bonn-Oberkassel in Germany. Of particular note was an instance where a dog was buried alongside two people, one old and one young. It's clear proof that people have revered dogs for a very long time. Although dog burials have been found throughout the world, the fossils found in Germany are notably older than most. Dog fossils in Germany and surrounding countries have been advanced as evidence that dogs originated in Europe, though that remains a highly contested claim. Part of the difficulty lies in defining the boundary between dogs and wolves.