Dinotherium Museum

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The cast of the Deinotherium skull found in Eppelsheim in 1835 is the central exhibit in the Dinotherium Museum

The Dinotherium Museum is a small natural history museum in Eppelsheim in Rheinhessen that shows original finds and copies of fossil mammals that were recovered from the 15 to 10 million year old deposits of the ancient Rhine , the so-called Eppelsheim Formation (formerly Dinotheriensande) .

history

The Dinotherium Museum is thanks to the idea and initiative of the former mayor of Eppelsheim, Heiner Roos. His commitment to the Paleontology is the appointment of a previously unknown 2003 shrew -like mammal from the small Eppelsheim lineup as Plesiosorex Roosi been honored. The name “Dinotherium Museum” was suggested by the Senckenberg paleontologist Jens Lorenz Franzen from Frankfurt . The opening took place on August 11, 2001. The small museum is housed in the old school, which is now also the town hall.

exhibition

One of the attractions of the Dinotherium Museum is the cast of the skull of an individual of the Deinotherium giganteum species , which was discovered in a sand pit near Eppelsheim in the Eppelsheim Formation in 1835. The name of the Dinotherium Museum and the former name of the Eppelsheim formation, “Dinotheriensande”, are derived from the generic name of this trunk animal, which can be up to 3.60 meters high . Another important exhibit is the casting of the femur of an ape- like primates who found Eppelsheim 1820 and 75 years later under the name Paidopithex rhenanus was described as a new genus and species. It is considered to be the historically oldest find by a representative of the close relatives of the great apes. The original fossils on display include the teeth and bones of the ancient horse Hippotherium primigenium , tapirs , the claw- footed odd-toed ungulate, Chalicotherium goldfussi and of course the deerotherium .

literature

  • Jens Lorenz Franzen: Dinotherium Museum opened in Eppelsheim. Nature and museum. Vol. 131, No. 4, 2001, pp. 126-128
  • Jens Lorenz Franzen, Heiner Roos, Ernst Probst: The Dinotherium Museum Eppelsheim, guide through the exhibition. Friends of the Dinotherium Museum eV Eppelsheim, Eppelsheim 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jens Lorenz Franzen, Oldřich Fejfar, Gerhard Storch: First micromammals (Mammalia, Soricomorpha) from the Vallesian (Miocene) of Eppelsheim, Rheinhessen (Germany). Senckenbergiana lethaea. Vol. 83, No. 1/2, 2003, pp. 95-102, doi: 10.1007 / BF03043307

Coordinates: 49 ° 42 ′ 20.58 "  N , 8 ° 9 ′ 59.09"  E