''Wellnhoferia'' (named after

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. W ...

) is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of early prehistoric bird-like theropod dinosaur closely related to '' Archaeopteryx''. It lived in what is now

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, during the Late

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

. 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 , ''Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau'' (before 1945) , free_label = Specialty programs , free = , colors = Blue , website uni.wroc.pl The University of Wrocław ( pl, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, U ...

, Poland, determined the differences resulted from a "phylogenetic reduction rather than individual variation." Archiesizeall1

The type specimen is the Solnhofen Specimen of ''Archaeopteryx'' (BSP 1999). Discovered in the 1960s near

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese ...

, Germany and described in 1988 by Wellnhofer (as a specimen of ''Archaeopteryx''), it is currently located at the

Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum The Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum is a natural history museum in Solnhofen, Germany. In 1954 the mayor Friedrich Mueller brought his private collection to the public. In 1968 the museum was officially founded and opened in 1970. The museum collect ...

in Solnhofen. It was originally classified as a ''

Compsognathus ''Compsognathus'' (; Ancient Greek, Greek ''kompsos''/κομψός; "elegant", "refined" or "dainty", and ''gnathos''/γνάθος; "jaw") is a genus of small, bipedalism, bipedal, carnivore, carnivorous theropoda, theropod dinosaur. Members o ...

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

References

Prehistoric avialans Prehistoric bird genera Late Jurassic dinosaurs of Europe Solnhofen fauna Feathered dinosaurs Jurassic birds {{paleo-bird-stub