Solnhofen

Solnhofen is an area around an hour north of Munich famous for fossils Some of the most important finds in Science come from here including Archaeopteryx above Discovered in the 1960's, Archaeopteryx lived somewhere around 150 millions years ago Archaeopteryx shows the link betwen Birds and Dinosaurs as it is the first example of what is basically a flying lizard with feathers

A model of how Archaeopteryx might have looked

A picture of the little museum by the pit with it's great fossil collection From here we rented hammers and chisels to go fossil hunting

We must be at the right place !

Sonya the paleontologist

It may not look like much but sites like these have given up some of the most important scientific discoveries helping us to understand the history of life

A Shrimp fossil with many other little guys embedded in the rock

Not only a Trilobite fossil but his tracks as well

Millions of years old lizard guy

Sonya checking out this huge croc fossil

We spent a couple of hours digging in the rocks and brought home a few fossils Nothing like Archaeopteryx but nevertheless it is pretty cool to find fossils that have been buried for millions of years like this little guy

Here we can see the guy's outline plus a more defined area that looks like a shell but is actually a movable flap to close up when he is in danger

Another fine specimen of life in the Cambrian age