Achim H Schwermann- Dr.
- Researcher at LWL-Museum für Naturkunde
Achim H Schwermann
- Dr.
- Researcher at LWL-Museum für Naturkunde
Curator of fossil vertebrates
About
92
Publications
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Introduction
Current institution
LWL-Museum für Naturkunde
Current position
- Researcher
Additional affiliations
May 2015 - January 2017
Steinmann-Institut, Universität Bonn
Position
- Research Assistant
April 2009 - May 2015
Publications
Publications (92)
Abstract The partial skeleton of a young adult Geotrypus
antiquus (de Blainville 1840) from the Upper Oligocene
(MP 28) found in Enspel comprises the skull with both
mandibles, distal ends of both scapulae, left clavicula,
humeri, ulnae and radii of both sides, various elements of
the hand, some vertebrae, ribs, and the left femur. For the
first ti...
We describe four exceptionally preserved Miocene talpid specimens from Germany (representing Mygalea jaegeri, Proscapanus sansaniensis, and Geotrypus montisasini), expanding and amending the original descriptions based on micro-computed tomography (μ-CT) data. These specimens are scored into an enlarged version of the Sánchez-Villagra et al. (2006)...
Two multituberculate molars from the Kimmeridgian of the Langenberg Quarry near Goslar (Lower Saxony, Germany) represent the first Jurassic mammals from Germany. An upper M1 with cusp formula 5L/4B is characterized by strongly ornamented enamel and is assigned to Teutonodon langenbergensis gen. et sp. n. within the plagiaulacid line. A second speci...
Multituberculata from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian–Aptian) Balve locality in Germany are represented by two taxa, the pinheirodontid Bructerodon alatus gen. et sp. nov. and the eobaatarid Cheruscodon balvensis gen. et sp. nov. Bructerodon alatus gen. et sp. nov. is known from an upper premolar (P5) and an upper molar (M1) with a distinct distoli...
A new salamandroid salamander, Balveherpeton hoennetalensis gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian– Aptian) Balve locality in the Sauerland, Germany, is described on the basis of fragmentary atlases, trunk and caudal vertebrae. Balveherpeton hoennetalensis gen. et sp. nov. is characterized by the following combination of vertebral c...
The woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799), may
well be the best-studied extinct animal to date. Great advancements in
mammoth evolution, behavior, and ecology have been made by studying
their tusks and teeth. However, skulls remain underutilized, because of:
a) the rarity of well-preserved skulls
b) the difficulty of studying suc...
The sky islands of Southwest China, characterized by dramatic topographical and climatic variations, are prominent hotspots of biodiversity and endemism. Organisms inhabiting middle-to-high elevation habitats in this region are geographically isolated within distinct mountain chains, which over geological time have been subjected to isolation-by-di...
Temnospondyli appeared in the early Carboniferous, became extinct in the Early Cretaceous and reached high diversity especially during the Permian and Triassic. After the end-Permian mass extinction, almost only Stereospondyli survived (with the exception of the dissorophoid Micropholis). This clade radiated and gave rise to several successful grou...
Only few candidates of Mesozoic fishes with a similar body plan and ecological niche to the modern billfishes are suggested as their analogues. Several specimens were recovered from Cenomanian deposits in Germany and Lebanon and display a billfish-like fusiform body with elongated premaxillae. They are found close to the plethodids and show a uniqu...
Fossil blowfly puparia were discovered from a woolly mammoth skull out of Pleis-tocene fluviatile sediments of the river Ems in Westphalia, Germany. Micro-computed tomography, stereo-and scanning electron microscopy were used to determine the fossil puparia as Protophormia terraenovae (Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830). Nowadays, this blowfly species is one...
The relationship of food comminution and individual age in Tupaia belangeri is investigated. It is hypothesized that with increasing age the performance of the molar dentition decreases due to progressive tooth wear. While this relationship is well-documented for herbivores, age-related test series are largely lacking for insectivorous mammals. 15...
The Lower Cretaceous (Barremian to Aptian) karstic fissure fill near Balve in Northwestern Germany has recently been found to represent the remnants of a former upland ecosystem and as such provides a rare window into an environment up to a few hundred meters above sea level during the Mesozoic. Aside from numerous other vertebrate groups, includin...
Upland environments are severely underrepresented in the fossil record, which causes substantial gaps in our knowledge of their paleodiversity. Barremian–Aptian upland paleokarst fissure and cave deposits exposed at Balve-Beckum in northwestern Germany yield a large amount of vertebrate remains. Disarticulated and fragmentary bones and teeth repres...
Early Cretaceous (late Barremian – early Aptian) fissure fill deposits near Balve, North Rhine Westphalia, Germany, have yielded a rich continental vertebrate fauna over the course of the last two decades. More than 250 fragmentary specimens, including more than 150 osteoderms (i.e., granicones), represent the late Early Cretaceous helochelydrid He...
fragmentary centrum of a dorsal vertebra and a manual ungual phalanx of eusauropod
dinosaurs from the Upper Barremian – Lower Aptian of Balve in western Germany
are described. The dorsal centrum shares potential synapomorphies with the enigmatic
genus Ornithopsis and can probably be referred to a titanosauriform. The Balve record
is of significance...
In 1915, the skull and bones of a Holocene aurochs (Bos primigenius) were found in a bog near Preußisch Ströhen (Town of Rahden) during drainage ditch operations. Theskull was largely completely restored and has since been exhibited in today’s Dobergmuseum-Geological Museum Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Bünde. Since the rostal section of the skull is prese...
Acquiring a subterranean lifestyle entails a substantial shift for many aspects of terrestrial vertebrates’ biology. Although this lifestyle is associated with multiple instances of convergent evolution, the relative success of some subterranean lineages largely remains unexplained. Here, we focus on the mammalian transitions to life underground, q...
The new spalacotheriid “symmetrodontan” Cifellitherium suderlandicum gen. et sp. nov. from the Barremian–Aptian
of the Balve locality in northwestern Germany is the first record of spalacotheriids in Central Europe. The new taxon is
based on one lower and two upper molars. Cifellitherium is similar to Spalacotherium, but differs by smaller styloc...
From the upper Oligocene (MP 28) of Enspel associated material of a dimylid is described. The find includes the skull and the right mandible; most of the teeth are preserved. In addition, a tibiofibula is described. Thus, this specimen represents the most comprehensive find of a dimylid individual. The specimen can be assigned to the species Exoeda...
The Langenberg Quarry near Bad Harzburg has yielded the first Jurassic stem therian mammal of Germany, recovered from Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) near shore deposits of a palaeo-island within the Lower Saxony Basin of the European archipelago. The new stem therian is represented by one lower and three upper molars. Hercynodon germanicus gen. et sp...
A fragmentary maxilla from the middle Callovian Ornatenton Formation of the Wiehengebirge, north-western Germany, shows two autapomorphies of the theropod dinosaur genus Torvosaurus, a maxilla fenestra that is developed as a large and shallow but not sharply defined depression and an anteroposteriorly oriented ridge transversing the ventral part of...
Since 2002, the LWL Museum of Natural History has been conducting excavations in sub-Cretaceous (c. 125 million years) terrestrial sediments near Balve. Non-marine sediments from this period are very rare worldwide. Moreover, the site under investigation offered an impressive spectrum of fauna. Because of its exceptional age, researchers hoped that...
An upper “triconodont” molar from the Late Jurassic (late Kimmeridgian) of the Langenberg Quarry in northern Germany is attributed to Storchodon cingulatus gen. et sp. nov. of Morganucodonta. The molar is characterized by continuous lingual and buccal cingula, and a relatively large, buccally-shifted cusp D which is not integrated in the buccal cin...
The Late Jurassic (late Kimmeridgian) multituberculate assemblage from the Langenberg Quarry in Northern Germany includes Paulchoffatiidae indet., the pinheirodontid Teutonodon langenbergensis, and Cimbriodon multituberculatus gen. et sp. nov. of the paulchoffatiid line. A fragmentary m1 that was formerly attributed to Eobaataridae indet. is now as...
Remains of Bubalus murrensis, a thermophile bovid, are very rare in the Pleistocene interglacial faunas of Europe. The new specimen collected from the Atlantic shoreline in the Medoc (France) extents the realm of this genus far into the West, whereas the most eastern occurrence is in Romania. The fossil fragment of a horn core most probably origina...
The Turonian was a seminal time in the evolution of Mosasauria, a clade of active lizards
that came to dominate Late Cretaceous oceans until their demise at the Cretaceous-
Palaeogene boundary. It saw in that time the mosasauroids increase in body size, become
at last fully aquatic, and disperse throughout much of the world, while their sister-grou...
Fossilised baby tusks of the woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799), are extremely rare. One such tusk was discovered in a sand quarry near Coesfeld in 2003. The frst fnd of its kind, it was handed over to the LWL Museum of Natural History, where it is now part of the permanent exhibition.
Articulating caudal vertebrae of an early representative of the family of mosasaurs were discovered near Halle in 2015. Dating from approximately 94 million years ago, the find is the earliest evidence of mosasaurs in continental western Europe. Although systematic classification is not possible due to the fragmented nature of the material, the ana...
About 50% of all animal species are considered parasites. The linkage of species diversity to a parasitic lifestyle is especially evident in the insect order Hymenoptera. However, fossil evidence for host–parasitoid interactions is extremely rare, rendering hypotheses on the evolution of parasitism assumptive. Here, using high-throughput synchrotro...
Fossil remnants of tetrapods have been collected in the Weser and Wiehen Mountains since the 1980s. The faunal spectrum has so far largely mirrored that of contemporaneous sites in England and France, thus adding to our knowledge of the biogeographical circumstances in central Europe 165 million years ago. These rare nds attest to a remarkable dive...
Plesiosauria were the most differentiated and successful marine reptiles of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They had a unique bodyplan and a highly specialised mode of locomotion using four flippers. The discovery of the skeleton of a Plesiosaurus at Warburg-Bonenburg is the first ever skeletal and thus confirmed evidence dating from the Trias...
The systematics of Geotrypus is among the most debated within Talpidae, but the recent development of quantitative methods for shape analyses allows us to provide a thorough reconsideration of Geotrypus spp. In the present study, we perform a systematic revision of the species Geotrypus minor from the early Oligocene of Germany using two-dimensiona...
The here reported tooth was recovered from a Rhaetian bonebed near Bonenburg. A comparison to the published eucynodont taxa of the Upper Triassic of Central Europe is given and the tooth is assigned to Le-pagia gaumensis Hahn, Wild & Wouters, 1987, which is based only on isolated teeth. This finding is the first evidence to date of terrestrial inpu...
Here we report on a paleontological excavation conducted by the University of Bonn from May 22 to May 30, 2015. The excavation took place in a Rhaetian bone bed exposed in the New Pit ("Pit III"), a clay pit operated by the August Lücking GmbH & Co. KG brick company in Bonenburg, City of Warburg, Kreis Höxter, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The e...
At the end of the 19 th century, numerous mineralized insects from the Paleogene were discovered during phosphorite mining in the former province of Quercy in France. Despite their unusual three-dimensional preservation, the Quercy insects received only minor attention from the scientifi c community. During the time of mining, the only detailed stu...
The Langenberg Quarry near Goslar is a classic outcrop of late Oxfordian to late Kimmeridgian shallow marine strata at the northern rim of the Harz Mountains in northern Germany. Paleogeographically located in the Lower Saxony Basin, it was surrounded by paleo-islands in the Jurassic. The terrestrial fauna and flora of these islands has been invest...
The Langenberg Quarry near Goslar is a classic outcrop of late Oxfordian to late Kimmeridgian shallow marine strata at the northern rim of the Harz Mountains in northern Germany. Paleogeographically located in the Lower Saxony Basin, it was surrounded by paleo-islands in the Jurassic. The terrestrial fauna and flora of these islands has been invest...
Golden moles have zalambdodont molars with a reduced metacone in the upper and a reduced talonid in the lower molars. Generally the molar dentition of Chrysochloris asiatica is considered as representative for the molar pattern of golden moles, neglecting the morphological diversity within Chrysochloridae. The functional morphology of 15 specimens...
The molars of Eutheria are derived from the plesiomorphic tribosphenic pattern. The tribosphenic molar is characterized by a combination of shear-cutting and a crushing and grinding interaction of the upper molarprotocone and the lower molar talonid basin. The power stroke of the chewing movement is divided into two distinct phases separated by cen...
Despite its richness in Jurassic strata with a plethora of vertebrate fossils and more
than 200 years of palaeontological research, no Jurassic mammals have been found
in Central Europe until recently. During the 2014 fieldwork of the Europasaurus-
Project, the first isolated mammal teeth were discovered at the Langenberg Quarry
near Goslar in nort...
Interactive 3D reconstruction of Onthophilus intermedius specimen F1994.
Click on the figure to start interactive 3D view; switch between views by using the menu (Adobe Reader 8.1 or higher required).
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.12129.010
Nexus code for character matrix.
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.12129.011
External and internal morphological characters of extant and fossil organisms are crucial to establishing their systematic position, ecological role and evolutionary trends. The lack of internal characters and soft-tissue preservation in many arthropod fossils, however, impedes comprehensive phylogenetic analyses and species descriptions according...
The molars of the extant golden moles are an excellent example for zalambdodont teeth. Commonly the dentition of Chrysochloris asiatica is considered typical for the family. However, there is in fact a remarkable morphological diversity and the molars of the golden moles can be classified into three patterns: (i), with protocone and entoconid, (ii)...
Molars of the extant lipotyphlan Solenodon show a zalambdodont crown shape that closely resembles the pretribosphenic condition of Mesozoic stem-Zatheria. In order to reconstruct the mastication cycle, abrasional and attritional wear patterns of the molars of four Solenodon paradoxus specimens were examined and the functional morphology was compare...
Palaeobatrachidae are extinct frogs from Europe closely related to the Gondwanan Pipidae, which includes Xenopus. Their frontoparietal is a distinctive skeletal element which has served as a basis for establishing the genus Albionbatrachus. Because little was known about developmental and individual variation of the frontoparietal, and its usefulne...
A series of actualistic experiments were conducted to reconstruct probable taphonomic scenarios for a fossil mole specimen from the Enspel locality. Extant Talpa europaea carcasses immersed in water initially floated at the water surface then sank after a few hours or remained floating. Soft tissues started to decompose immediately and concomitantl...
Almost exclusively three dimensional insect fossils are preserved in amber, which conserves amazing details of the animals. But in most cases only the outer surface of the body is preserved whereas internal structures are lost. A little-known type of three dimensional fossil insects is fissure fillings. A rapid mineralization can happen in a very p...
Fossil vertebrate skeletons from subaquatic sediments display a melange of decomposition processes, compaction and diagenesis,
which have to be discriminated for a detailed taphonomic analysis. The sequence of decomposition and disarticulation of skeletal
elements is controlled intrinsically by the different resistances of soft tissues to decay, as...
Diese Arbeit beschreibt das Teilskelett eines Maulwurfs aus dem Oberoligozän von Enspel. Um die Bedeutung und die taxonomische Stellung dieses Fundes zu verdeutlichen, wird ein einleitender Überblick zum einen über Enspel als Fossillagerstätte, zum anderen über den Fossilbericht der Talpiden gegeben. Das Fossil wird durch diagnostische Skelett- und...
Questions
Questions (6)
Dear colleagues.
Fragments of this species are very rare from a terrestrial Lower Cretaceous locality from Germany. Up to now from this locality sauropods could not be proved with certainty. Other vertebrates (sharks, bony fish, amphibians, small reptiles, turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mammals) are represented by partly numerous remains. Sauropod remains would be plausible.
I would therefore like to ask the following questions: Can a sauropod tooth be uniquely identified from a fragment?
What other taxa might be possible for this fragment?
I am curious about your suggestions and hints.
Achim
Dear colleagues,
who can help identify this fossil? It is a fish that was found by a private collector years ago in a quarry south of Solnhofen. The skull is in a three-dimensional preservation.
I would be happy to take more detailed photos.
Dear colleagues, who can help me?
In general, tibia and fibula are fused in many extant representatives of Eulipotyphla. Is this true for ALL Erinaceae and Soricidae? (In all Talpidae this is the case, but not in Solenodon).
And who can make statements about the condition in Nesophontes?
Thank you very much for your help.
Achim
The specimen comes from the Menden Conglomerate (near Menden, Germany), which consists of relocated Devonian material.
The lined up elements are connected to each other at the constrictions. They are not skeleton plates of a sea urchin. Does anyone have any hints about what it might be?
This tooth came from a Kimmeridgian locality in Northern Germany, yielding marine sediments. There is also a macroscopic and microscopic content of terrestrial taxa from this locality.
We are confused about the two-cusped shape and the very distincted facet of attritive wear.
Could it be a fish tooth? Similar mammal teeth are unknown until now.
Rossignol collected insects from the phosphorits of Larnagal in 1902. The became part of a "Quercy-Collection". The exact age is unknown.
