Oliver Wings- Dr. rer. nat., Dipl.-Geol.
- Director at Natural History Museum Bamberg
Oliver Wings
- Dr. rer. nat., Dipl.-Geol.
- Director at Natural History Museum Bamberg
About
219
Publications
119,152
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Introduction
Hello and welcome at my research profile! I am a vertebrate paleontologist working on fossil vertebrates, gastroliths, vertebrate taphonomy, dinosaur trackways, and bone diagenesis. I work as the director at the Natural History Museum in Bamberg, Bavaria, where you can find, among many other exciting specimens, the magnificent plattenkalk fossils from Wattendorf.
Current institution
Natural History Museum Bamberg
Current position
- Director
Additional affiliations
July 2017 - July 2022
Position
- Curator of the Geosciences and Geiseltal Collections
August 2016 - June 2017
Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha
Position
- Curator of the Geological and Paleontological Collections
Description
- Responsible for all Geoscientific Collections including all specimens from the Bromacker Locality
August 2012 - July 2016
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover
Position
- Head of the "Europasaurus-Project"
Description
- Leader of a larger research project regarding Late Jurassic vertebrates from the Langenberg Quarry in Lower Saxony.
Publications
Publications (219)
Polished pebbles occasionally found within skeletons of giant herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs are very likely to be gastroliths (stomach stones). Here, we show that based on feeding experiments with ostriches and comparative data for relative gastrolith mass in birds, sauropod gastroliths do not represent the remains of an avian-style gastric mill....
The herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were the largest terrestrial animals ever, surpassing the largest herbivorous mammals by an order of magnitude in body mass. Several evolutionary lineages among Sauropoda produced giants with body masses in excess of 50 metric tonnes by conservative estimates. With body mass...
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...
Bereit für eine spannende Zeitreise 154 Millionen Jahre zurück in die Vergangenheit? In der späten Jurazeit, als Mitteleuropa ein subtropisches Inselreich war, durchstreiften gefräßige Raubsaurier, flinke kleine Säugetiere und der zwergenwüchsige Riesendinosaurier Europasaurus die Landschaft im heutigen Norddeutschland.
Beeindruckende Bilder erzähl...
The first part of this article gives an overview of influential comics and graphic novels on paleontological themes from the last 12 decades. Through different forms of representation and narration, both clichés and the latest findings from paleontological research are presented in comics in an entertaining way for a broad audience. As a result, co...
Recent fieldwork in the late Middle Jurassic Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan has yielded a partial skeleton of a large theropod dinosaur. The material includes a few bones of the skull (postorbital, quadratojugal), dorsal and sacral vertebrae, fragments of the pectoral girdle and forelimbs, and an almost complete pelvic girdle and hindlimbs, and...
The basal macronarian sauropod Europasaurus holgeri is known only from the Late Jurassic of the Langenberg Quarry near Goslar, Lower Saxony, Germany. Europasaurus has been identified as an insular dwarf and shows a clear resemblance to Camarasaurus and Giraffatitan . This study provides a detailed description of the dentition of Europasaurus based...
Three new lower molars of Storchodon cingulatus and a fragmentary upper molar confirm its morganucodontan affinities. Cusps b and c are relatively higher than in Morganucodon, and cusp c is larger than cusp b. Cusp a is asymmetric, with slightly distally recurved tip. All known lower Storchodon molars have a pronounced furcation between the roots o...
Semi-articulated remains of a large chelonioid turtle from the Turonian strata (Upper Cretaceous; ca. 93.9–89.8 Myr) near Sant’Anna d’Alfaedo (Verona province, northeastern Italy) are described for the first time. Together with the skeletal elements, the specimen also preserves pebbles inside the thoracic area which are lithologically distinct from...
The Eocene Geiseltal Konservat-Lagerstätte (Germany) is famous for reports of three dimensionally preserved soft tissues with sub-cellular detail. The proposed mode of preservation, direct replication in silica, is not known in other fossils and has not been verified using modern approaches. Here, we investigated the taphonomy of the Geiseltal anur...
Docodon hercynicus sp. nov. from the Upper Jurassic (upper Kimmeridgian) Süntel Formation of the Langenberg
Quarry in Lower Saxony is the first docodontan recorded from Central Europe. The two lower molars available are
characterised by vertical enamel ridges at the distal flank of cusp a, which are typical for Docodon. This is only
the second reco...
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL TO
A new booid snake from the Eocene (Lutetian) fossil Konservat-Lagerstätte of Geiseltal, Germany, and a new phylogenetic analysis of Booidea
We describe two exceptionally preserved fossil snakes from the Eocene Konservat-Lagerstätte of Geiseltal, located in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The two snake specimens, GMH LIX-3-1992 and GMH XXXVIII-20-1964, can be confidently identified as booids based on general morphology and were thus compared to other geographically and/or temporall...
Next to movies, comics are probably the most influential medium to present dinosaurs to the public in a memorable way. The easily accessible visual format offers the possibility to transmit scientific results to a broad audience (although strips involving prehistoric creatures are aimed predominately at a young readership). Comics have the advantag...
Herein we describe phytosaurs from thin fluvial overbank sandstones of the Upper Triassic Malmros Klint Formation of the Fleming Fjord Group (central East Greenland). The new sample includes more than 150 disarticulated bones and teeth from small to large specimens belonging to at least four individuals. The fossils mostly consist of teeth and post...
The first part of this article gives an overview of influential comics and graphic novels on paleontological themes from the last twelve decades. Through different forms of representation and narration, both clichés and the latest findings from paleontological research are presented in comics in an entertaining way for a broad audience. As a result...
Comprising more than 350 dinosaur footprints and at least 38 trackways, the TY tracksite described herein is located close to the border of NW Lesotho, near Teyateyaneng (TY), and is probably identical to the site originally mentioned by Dornan in 1908. The tridactyl footprints are exposed as natural casts on a cliff overhang and a fallen block at...
The Geiseltal biota is an Eocene lacustrine Konservat‐Lagerstätte in central Germany. Despite its rich fauna and flora (over 50 000 fossil vertebrates, insects and other invertebrates, plants and trace fossils) the taphonomy of the biota, and of the anurans in particular, is poorly understood. We analysed the skeletal taphonomy of 168 anurans, scor...
Gekkota (geckos and pygopods) constitute a diverse and early diverging clade of squamates, but their highly fragmentary fossil record allows only limited insights into their evolutionary history. Even long-known classic Palaeogene Lagerst€atten, such as the Eocene Messel and Geiseltal, remained uninformative for gecko evolution. Here we describe an...
Plants, insects, and their ecological interactions have been key components of global terrestrial ecosystems throughout geologic time. The arms race between latex-producing plants and latex-sabotaging insect herbivores—resulting in increasingly deadly latex in plants and progressively complex sabotaging behaviors in insects—is one such ecological i...
The Late Triassic (Norian) outcrops of the Malmros Klint Formation, Jameson Land (Greenland) have yielded numerous specimens of non-sauropod sauropodomorphs. Relevant fossils were briefly reported in 1994 and were assigned to Plateosaurus trossingensis. However, continuous new findings of early non-sauropod sauropodomorphs around the globe facilita...
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...
Horseshoe crabs are archetypal marine chelicer-ates with an exceptionally long fossil record. Due to the historical nature of the genus Limulus, which extends back to Linnaeus' descriptions, many horseshoe crab fossils were traditionally placed in Limulus and the family Limulidae. Despite continued research into the accurate placement of species wi...
Although the fibrous plant material called Affenhaar from the middle Eocene lignites of Geiseltal in Germany has been repeatedly studied for over 172 years, modern imaging and chemical analyses have enabled a deeper understanding of its chemical composition and preservation within the parent plant. Known in English as “monkeyhair”, the fibrous materi...
Vor wenigen Jahrzehnten war das etwa 20 Kilometer südwestlich von Halle (Saale) gelegene Geiseltal noch ein ausgedehntes Braunkohleabbaugebiet. Weitaus früher, genauer im mittleren Eozän vor ca. 47,5 - 42,5 Millionen Jahren, erstreckte sich hier eine subtropische Sumpflandschaft, in der es vor vielfältigem Leben nur so wimmelte. Viele dieser Lebewe...
Dinosaur remains were discovered in the 1860’s in the Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) Reuchenette Formation of Moutier, northwestern Switzerland. In the 1920’s, these were identified as a new species of sauropod, Ornithopsis greppini, before being reclassified as a species of Cetiosauriscus (C. greppini), otherwise known from the type species (C. stew...
The Solvey Quarry of Bernburg is one of the most important ichnosites from the Muschelkalk of the Germanic Basin. Extensive surfaces with long chirotheriid trackways have been discovered and assigned to Chirotherium and Isochirotherium. Some undescribed step cycles from this site are analysed here and assigned to Synaptichnium isp. These footprints...
We report on sporadic fossil vertebrates from Brunei Darussalam (Borneo). Most of these isolated remains are reworked and derive from Penanjong Beach known for former coastal cliffs used to be rich in marine molluscs. Previously, the only vertebrate remains reported were shark teeth. With new material, the fish fauna is now represented by six shark...
Conference Report: 3rd International Conference of Continental Ichnology (ICCI), hosted by the Natural Sciences Collections (Zentralmagazin Naturwissenschaftlicher Sammlungen, ZNS) of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) from October 23rd – October 29th, 2019.
A negative correlation between body size and the latitudinal temperature gradient is well established for extant terrestrial endotherms but less so in the fossil record. Here we analyze the middle Eocene site of Geiseltal (Germany), whose record is considered to span ca. 5 Myrs of gradual global cooling, and generate one of the most extensive mamma...
Marine limestones and marls in the Langenberg Quarry provide unique insights into a Late Jurassic island ecosystem in central Europe. The beds yield a varied assemblage of terrestrial vertebrates including extremely rare bones of theropod from theropod dinosaurs, which we describe here for the first time. All of the theropod bones belong to relativ...
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...
Conference abstract volume and field trip guide for a 3-day field trip focused on continental ichnology of Germany
Stomach stones (geo gastroliths) are considered a rather special case of ichnologic objects, but they occur commonly in fossil and extant lithophagic vertebrates and can reveal valuable insights into the paleobiology and spatial distribution of their bearers. These stones and their use are still surrounded by many puzzles. Two pressing questions ar...
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...
Stomach stones (geo-gastroliths) are known from a large variety of crocodyliforms from the Jurassic until today. Today especially common in the crocodilians Crocodylus and Alligator, gastroliths distribution and amounts within individuals of certain taxa are highly variable, which complicates the identification of their possible function(s). Severa...
The Eocene Geiseltal Konservat-Lagerstätte (˜47.5-42.5 million years) is hosted in lignites recovered from open mine pits located ca. 20 km SW of Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Excavations began in the 1920’s and were terminated by the flooding of the pits in the 2000’s. Today, circa 50,000 specimens are curated in the Geiseltal Collection,...
Forelimb posture in sauropod dinosaurs is still poorly understood. Although a laterally directed (semisupinated) manus is the plesiomorphic condition in sauropodomorphs, the sauropod track record prevailingly shows anterolateral to anterior manus orientations, suggesting a high degree of manus pronation. The ?Middle Jurassic Tafaytour tracksites de...
The Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania, southeastern Africa, records a rich sauropod fauna, including the diplodocoids Dicraeosaurus and Tornieria, and the brachiosaurid titanosauriform Giraffatitan. However, the taxonomic affinities of other sympatric sauropod taxa are poorly understood. Here, we critically reassess and redescribe these...
The lignite open mine pits at Geiseltal, located ca. 20 km SW of Halle (Saale), Saxony- Anhalt, Germany, have produced abundant and excellently preserved fossils for more than 80 years. A Konzentrat and Konservat-lagerstätte at the same time, the pits are flooded and inaccessible today. However, the Geiseltal Collection at the Center for Natural Sc...
The Eocene fossil record of Crocodylia in Europe is exceptionally rich and diverse. One of the most commonly found taxa with an extensive fossil record are Diplocynodon spp., which are present in many fossil collections in Europe. Literally hundreds of well-preserved articulated specimens exist last but not least from several exceptional Konservat...
Two sauropodomorph trackways are known from Late Norian-Early Rhaetian lake deposits of the Flem-ing Fjord Formation in Greenland. One (Evazoum) is referable to a prosauropod, and the other (Eosau-ropus) to a basal sauropod. Tidal flat sediments of the Eastern Swiss Alps have yielded trackways of prosauropods attributed to Tet-rasauropus, despite t...
The fossil record of post-Paleozoic lungfishes in Greenland is currently restricted to a few brief reports of isolated and undetermined tooth plates coming from the uppermost Fleming Fjord Formation (late Norian) in Jameson Land, central East Greenland. Here, we describe Ceratodus tunuensis, sp. nov., a new dipnoan from a thin bed of calcareous lak...
Shallow-marine Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) deposits in the Lower Saxony Basin (LSB) composed of alternating limestone, marl and claystone attract great palaeontological interest due to their rich invertebrate and vertebrate assemblages. Unfortunately, the absence of open-marine marker fossils and numerous sedimentary gaps in combination with later...
The paleontological collections in Gotha have a history of well over 350 years. Today, more than 60,000 fossils are kept and scientifically curated in the Museum of Nature which is part of the foundation Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha. The collections are focused on regional finds from the Thuringian Forest and the Thuringian Basin. Their age...
Since 1887, the Bromacker locality in the Thuringian Forest in central Germany is a wellknown
fossil site for different trace and body fossils with high abundance and exquisite
preservation. Stratigraphically situated in the Lower Permian Tambach Formation,
Bromacker sedimentary rocks consist mainly of red-coloured silt- and sandstones, deposited
i...
Sedimentology and profil documentation of Bromacker fossil locality (TRACO Quarry)
The Late Triassic (Norian–early Rhaetian) Fleming Fjord Formation of central East Greenland preserves a diverse fossil fauna, including both body and trace fossils. Trackways of large quadrupedal archosaurs, although already reported in 1994 and mentioned in subsequent publications, are here described and figured in detail for the first time, based...
The Geiseltal Collection at the Center for Natural Science Collections of MLU holds about 50,000 fossil specimens, of which more than half are vertebrates. The entire collection is protected as national heritage, containing nearly every animal fossil from the nearby Geiseltal fossillagerstätte, excavated 1925-2003. More than two dozen taxa were nam...
In der Kunstkammer-Ausstellung der Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha befindet sich unter vielen anderen Kostbarkeiten ein kleiner Marmorglobus von nur 11,9 cm Durchmesser, von dem vermutet wird, dass er vom Nürnberger Meister Johannes Schöner um das Jahr 1533 angefertigt worden ist. Dieser Globus war nicht zuletzt aufgrund seiner kartografischen...
We report a new, small-sized atoposaurid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic of Langenberg, Northeastern Germany. Atoposaurids are small-sized Mesozoic crocodyliforms of mainly European distribution, which are considered to be phylogenetically close to the origin of Eusuchia. Knoetschkesuchus langenbergensis gen. nov. sp. nov. is represented by t...
Consensus tree with Bremer support values.
The consensus tree is recovered from 18 most parsimonious trees of a matrix of 82 ingroup taxa and 321 phenotypic characters.
(TIF)
Measurements of Knoetschkesuchus langenbergensis gen. nov. sp. nov.
(DOCX)
Character list, taxon list, and documented changes in the matrix.
This file includes character list, taxon list, and documented changes in the matrix used for the phylogenetic analysis.
(DOCX)
Standard bootstrap and jackknife support analysis.
Trees obtained from the character matrix (excluding Elosuchus cherifiensis). Tree topologiesüöä_obtained both from jackknifing and bootstrapping are summarized using GC frequencies.
(TIF)
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...
During the Kimmeridgian, sedimentation in the Lower Saxony Basin was characterized by shallow-water deposits composed of alternating limestones, marls and claystones. Stratigraphic uncertainties caused by the absence of open marine marker fossils and prevalence of sedimentary gaps hamper a precise age assignment and correlation of these successions...
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...
Remains of theropod dinosaurs are very rare in Northern Germany because the area was repeatedly submerged by a shallow epicontinental sea during the Mesozoic. Here, 80 Late Jurassic theropod teeth are described of which the majority were collected over decades from marine carbonates in nowadays abandoned and backfilled quarries of the 19th century....
Compilation of changed character codings.
Compilation of changed character codings for the data- and supermatrix of Hendrickx and Mateus [61].
(DOC)
Updated Datamatrix dentition-based characters.
Modified datamatrix of Hendricks and Mateus [61] with dentition-based characters only.
(TNT)
Reduced dataset DFA comparison measurements Hendrickx and Smith.
Reduced morphometric dataset for the comparison of overlapping taxa of Smith and Lamanna [74] and Hendrickx et al. [64].
(XLS)
3D-View Morphotype F.
NLMH101380a of morphotype F in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
3D-View Morphotype L.
NLMH106235a of morphotype L in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
3D-View Morphotype R.
DMMhFV709.1 of morphotype R in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
Measurements, character codings of the morphotypes and results DFA theropod teeth Northern Germany.
Morphometric measurements, character codings of the morphotypes and results of the DFA and classification for 80 theropod teeth from Northern Germany. Character list adopted of Hendrickx and Mateus [1, 61].
(XLS)
Datamatrix.
Modified datamatrix used for the cladistic analysis that is based on the supermatrix of Hendricks and Mateus [61].
(TNT)
Main dataset for the DFA.
Dataset with morphometric measurements for the DFA. This dataset comprises measurements of theropod teeth provided by Smith and Lamanna [74], Hendrickx et al. [64] and Rauhut et al. [75].
(XLS)
Results DFA Morphotype K.
DFA results for morphotype K with isolated teeth (ML927 and ML966) described by Hendrickx and Mateus [1] included.
(XLS)
3D-View Morphotype C.
NLMH101376a of morphotype C in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
3D-View Morphotype E.
GZG.V.010.379 of morphotype E in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
3D-View Morphotype G.
NLMH101378a of morphotype G in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
3D-View Morphotype H.
GZG.V.010.373 of morphotype H in 3D-View.
(ZIP)
Questions
Questions (4)
Very cool project!
The event helps us understanding the Europasaurus dinosaur assemblage in Germany.
I wonder if you now find any evidence for the lightning strike as the cause of death on the decayed skeletons.
Sometimes bodies struck by lightning show specific marks, so called Lichtenberg figures. Have you seen anything like this on the bones?
Thanks for answering!
Oliver
I am looking into long-term online repositories for stl-files based on micro CT-scans (i.e., fossil croc skull, new taxon) to go with a PLoS One paper. Of course we want to publish the best quality available (meaning large amounts of data) and need secure long-time storage. I am aware of the Uhen et al. (2013) SVP paper mentioning morphbank, morphobank, etc. and of the additional sources discussed on Sarah Werning's "Integrative Paleontologists" blog - however, both sources are 3 years old.
What is your favorite repository right now and why?
I recently missed the deadline for an interesting, but very small and specialized meeting and wonder if there are any helpful websites which regularily list upcoming meetings and conferences in paleontology, geology, and biology?
For a starter, I have just learned that the newsletter of the Palaeontological Association carries lists of upcoming (paleo)meetings.
Somebody just told me that today (Janurary 7th) is the "International Day of the Fossil" - well, I have never heard of it and wonder if that is correct. Any information would be appreciated!
