Wilhelm Barnim Dames (9 June 1843, in Stolp – 22 December 1898, in Berlin) was a German paleontologist of the Berlin University, who described the first complete specimen of the early bird Archaeopteryx in 1894. This specimen is currently in the Museum für Naturkunde.
He studied at the universities of Berlin and Breslau, where he was a student of Ferdinand von Roemer. In 1874 he obtained his habilitation, and in 1891 succeeded Heinrich Ernst Beyrich as a full professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Berlin.[1] With Emanuel Kayser, he was co-editor of the journal Paläontologische Abhandlungen.[2]
Dames was also the first to describe an Archaeoceti fossil from Egypt in 1883.[3] In 1894 he published Über Zeuglodonten aus Ägypten und die Beziehungen der Archaeoceten zu den übrigen Cetaceen ("On Zeuglodontes from Egypt and the relationship of Archaeoceti to the other cetaceans").[4]
A Devonian brachiopod coming from an outcrop in Lower Silesia Dames had studied[5] was named in his honour Kyrtatrypa barnimi.[6]
- ^ Dames, Wilhelm Barnim In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2, S. 499.
- ^ Palæontologische Abhandlungen OCLC WorldCat
- ^ Gingerich, P. D. (2007). "Early evolution of whales: a century of research in Egypt". In Fleagle, J. G.; Gilbert, Christopher C. (eds.). Elwyn Simons: A Search for Origins (PDF). New York: Springer. pp. 107–124. ISBN 978-0-387-73896-3. OCLC 233971398. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
- ^ Über Zeuglodonten aus Ägypten ... OCLC WorldCat
- ^ Dames, Wilhelm Barnim (1868). "Ueber die in der Umgebung Freiburgs in Nieder-Schlesien auftretenden devonischer Ablagerungen". Zeitschrift der deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft. 20: 469–508.
- ^ Halamski, A. T. (2013). "Frasnian Atrypida (Brachiopoda) from Silesia (Poland) and the age of the eo-Variscan collision in the Sudetes". Geodiversitas. 35 (2): 289–308. doi:10.5252/g2013n2a1. S2CID 128761082 – via BioOne.