Michael Wachtler

Michael Wachtler - Important discoveries

	1990: Bjuvia dolomitica Around 1990 Michael Wachtler discovers a variety of petrified plants that so far had been unknown to the science. All of them derive from a 230 million year era, called Ladin, during which parts of the Dolomites experienced some fervid volcanic eruptions. Together with the Dutch paleontological botanist Han van Konijnenburg – van Cittert he describes them. Among them there is a primitive ancestral cycad.
	Sphenozamites wengensis This new species was probably a plant of the cycad group.
	Voltzia dolomitica, the primitive conifer of the Dolomites This first by Michael Wachtler discovered primitive species of conifer was widespread in the Southern Alps 230 million years ago. The proper cones could be discovered too.
	Voltzia ladinica This is another typical primitive conifer species from the Dolomites that has been analyzed and described for the first time by Michael Wachtler and Han van Konijnenburg – van Cittert.
	Voltzia pragsensis This species of conifer that resembles superficially to today’s Araucaien –trees has been described scientifically for the first time in 2000.
	1999: Big discoveries In the year 1999 Michael Wachtler discovers the later worldwide known “fossil repository Kühwiesenkopf” in the Dolomites of Braies/Prags. It contains a lot of until then unknown species of plants, fishes and even primitive land saurians. This place of discovery in the Dolomites of Braies/Prags will later become a matter of a lot of scientific publications.
	2003: Megachirella wachtleri
	Gordonopteris lorigae
	Scythophyllum bergeri and the appropriate new fructification Peltaspermum bornemannii This is a seed fern species that was widespread in the Dolomites about 240 million years ago during the Anis era. It was the first time that the junction of this peculiar fern with his ovule was a success.
	Neuropteridium elegans and his fertile part Scolopendrites scolopendrioides Han van Konijnenburg – van Cittert, Evelyn Kustatscher and Michael Wachtler bring together for the first time different fern species and their fructifications without a doubt. They are primitive ferns that expanded rapidly after the big Permian – Triassic – catastrophe.
	Neuropteridium voltzii and his fertile part Scolopendrites grauvogelii The “fossil repository Kühwiesenkopf” in the Dolomites stood out because of a variety of new plants. This fern species is one of them that could be classified.
	2003: The biggest gold finding of the Alps Michael Wachtler and his friends Lino and Mario Pallaoro and Georg Kandutsch succeed in discovering the arguably biggest gold finding of the Alps in Brusson in the Aosta Valley. They recover about four kilos of pure gold.
	2007 The location of dinosaur traces Piz da Peres In the year 2007 Michael Wachtler discovers first in the Duron Valley in Trentino a rich place of discovery of primitive saurians and only a few weeks later another one, even more important, on the Piz da Peres in the Dolomites of Braies/Prags. Together with Marco Avanzini and Rossana Todesco from the Museum Tridentino for Natural Sciences he studies them. Thereby some totally new tracks were revealed that give deep insides to the beginning development of the dinosaurs.
	2009: Lycopia dezanchei, the origin of the modern Lycopodium Various primitive species of Lycopodium discovered by Michael Wachtler will be presented to the public in the presence of Evelyn Kustatscher and Han van Konijnenburg - van Cittert. One in particular, Lycopia dezanchei, has aroused the interest of the experts: a tree-shaped ancestor of today’s tiny, creeping Lycopodium, a moss-like plant. Image1: Isoetites brandneri Image2: Lepacyclotes bechstaedtii Image3: Lycopia dezanchei Image4: Selaginellites leonardii
	Treasure hunting in the Venzuelan Gran Sabana. In the jungles of the Amazon, on the high, barren plateaus of the tableland mesas where centimeter-sized diamonds and big gold crystals have been unearthed. The area is so inhospitable that companies have never been able to establish mining operations. This is the Kingdom of “El Trompo Rojo”. Some Americans named him the “Jungle Buyer” because he always has the best gold crystals and diamonds. His real name is Alejandro Stern, but in Venezuela he is known as “El Trompo Rojo”: this is how people refer to one of the rarest gems ever discovered here, the “blood red Diamond”, a single carat of which can fetch approximately one million dollars.