Search the Community

To mark the occasion of this new sub forum for museums. I would like you show you some wonderful stuff in Teylers Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands. This is actually the oldest museum in the Netherlands and thus also has some really cool history attached to it and it's specimens. http://www.teylersmuseum.nl/en Besides fossils this museum also holds an art and science collection. The museum is just as beautiful as the specimens in it and a true time capsule. While it is quite a small museum, it's charm is worth the trip alone. Even the cabinets are pretty. It even has a few world firsts, such as Archaeopteryx and Mosasaurus. Now on to fossils! One of the most important specimens on display here is one of the Archaeopteryx specimens. This is actually the first Archaeopteryx as it was found before the feather and the London specimen were found. But for a long time it was labeled as a Pterodactylus. Only later was it found that it was in fact an Archaeopteryx. While very incomplete it is one of the larger animals of the genus (the third largest I think). the specimen consists of slab and counter slab. If you look close you can still see the vague impression of the flight feathers on the wings. It also very nicely shows the keratinous sheaths of the claws. Archaeopteryx lithographica Along with Archaeopteryx Teylers also has a very nice collection of the Jurassic of Solnhofen in Bavaria. They have a number of Rhamphorhynchus skeletons, lizards, fish, crustaceans and squids complete with tentacles and inksacs. Rhamphorhynchus Various fish Homocosaurus maximiliani Various critters

So apparently one of the rare Archaeopteryx fossils, the Haarlem specimen in Holland to be precise, turns out to be not an Archaeopteryx at all but a more primitive featured dinosaur closely related to the Chinese Anchiornis. This specimen from Bavaria, Germany was found (in 1855) well before Archaeopteryx was described and was originally misidentified as a Pterosaur. Only later was it identified as a feathered Archaeopteryx, which now it turns out might also not be completely accurate. With it now being described as an Anchiornithid, that makes it the only species of this group outside China. The Haarlem specimen has been named Ostromia crassipes. Open access paper https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-017-1076-y A number of years ago I made a drawing of this specimen, I suppose I need to update it now My drawing, which also shows what remains are actually present on this specimen.