Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach (12 June 1870 – 18 December 1952) was a German paleontologist.
A German nobleman and paleontologist, Ernst Stromer described Cretaceous dinosaurs of Egypt: Aegyptosaurus, Bahariasaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and the largest known theropod, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
A little known geologist from Munich, Germany, Ernst Stromer had an aristocratic standing in German society (the "Freiherr" in his name roughly equals "baron" in English); his father had been the mayor in his home city of Nuremburg, and his ancestors had been laywers, courtiers, scientists, architechts, and other leaders.
Contents 1 Stromer arrives in Egypt 2 The Expedition Begins 3 Important Discovery 4 Disaster Strikes 5 Other Useful Information 6 Sources 7 External links
Stromer arrives in Egypt On November 7, 1910, Stromer arrived for a paleontological expedition in Alexandria, Egypt aboard the Lloyd's steamship Cleopatra. However, Stromer was still aboard the ship two days later because the ship had been put into quarantine; a doctor had revealed a third-class passenger to have a disease he suspected to be cholera.
Finally, on Wednesday, November 9, the doctor announced that the passengers could be released and, after a night's stay at a hotel, Stromer and his companions set out by train to arrive in Cairo the next day.
After checking into the hotel in Cairo, Stromer found a letter of welcome waiting for him from the Director of the Geological Survey of Egypt at the post office. Stromer was a man who observed the formalities, and the second thing he did that afternoon was to visit the office of George Steindorff, a reputable German Egyptologist, as a matter of courtesy and to plan the future expedition.
On November 14, Stromer went to meet with John Ball, the founder of the Desert Survey Department of the Geological Survey of Egypt. In that year, the Survey had published the first topographic map of Egypt, and was finishing a geological map that was to be published in 1911. Both sources were invaluable to Stromer, now planning his upcoming expedition to Bahariya, an area of the Western Desert that was little known.
On November 15, Stromer was worried. There was a missing person; Richard Markgraf was a person of European descent who had fallen in love with the Western Desert and stayed there. Markgraf had lived in a small village just south of Cairo: Sinnuris. There is no record of how Markgraf came to Stromer's attention.
Markgraf and Stromer met during the winter of 1901-1902, and got along very well. Markgraf was Stromer's sammler, or fossil collector, for 10 1/2 years, and became Stromer's friend. Markgraf, however, was often ill. It is unclear whether the cause was malaria or intestinal bleeding from typhoid or chronic amebic dysentery.
On that morning, Stromer was worried that Markgraf was having another one of his spells, and needed him desperately to help plan the expedition. So far, he had not appeared and all attempts to contact him had failed. However, his worrying vanished the moment he opened the door to his hotel room; for there, sitting on a chair, was Richard Markgraf.
The plan for the expedition contained three parts; first, Stromer and Markgraf would travel northwest from Cairo to Wadi el Natrun. After exploring the area for a few weeks, they would return to Cairo, replenish their supplies, and afterwards head south to Luxor to explore the eastern slopes of the Nile Valley.
However, gaining permission to enter the desert was no longer easy. Even in 1910, tension was growing between Germany and Britain, and both were wary of the other country's activities anywhere in the world. However, Stromer finally got the permits.
The Expedition Begins Stromer and Markgraf took the train from Cairo to Giza, where they joined their camel driver, Oraan, and loaded their four camels. At 9:40 a.m. on November 19, they began hiking across Giza plateau.
Stromer was intent on finding the fossils of early mammals in North Africa. At the time, it was widely believed that mankind had originated in Europe of the northern continents, not Africa, but Stromer believed otherwise.
However, Stromer was not to find early mammals on his expedition, but something completely different. Stromer was to find Egypt's only known dinosaurs.
Stromer's 1910 journals of his days at Wadi el Natrun reveal that he worked all through the day, hiking for miles, climbing hills, hammering pieces of rock from outcroppings throughout the valley. Though he worked hard, almost tirelessly, the weeks he spent at Wadi el Natrun were largely unsuccessful. He found endless sharks' teeth, broken shells of ancient turtles, and the occasional jaw of a prehistoric crocodile, but no mammals. By December, he had returned to Cairo.
Markgrof, however, was instructed to stay behind and continue the search. Stromer was delighted when, a week or so later, Markgrof presented to their employer the skull of a small monkey. It was named after Markgrof: Libypithecus markgrafi.
The second stage of the expedition took them to a location far up the Nile in December. There was no more luck there than there had been in Wade el Natrun.
To complicate matters, Markgrof had fallen ill again and would not be able to accompany Stromer on the third and most vital part of the expedition: the part that would take them to Bahariya Oasis. Stromer knew little Arabic and was completely unfamiliar with the remote reaches of Egypt's Western Desert. He suddenly felt bereft and abandoned, and his expedition was threatened.
Stromer did eventually find a dragoman who could function as a guide and translator, however, to make things easier. The permits to explore the Western Desert were not so easily obtained.
On January 3, 1911, he and the rest of his crew boarded a train and set off for the Western Desert. The train line ended at the southern edge of the Bahariya Oasis. They spent the night in a simple canvas tent, eating a simple dinner of chicken and rice. By noon the next day, they were deep in the desert and the expedition to Bahariya was finally beginning.
The caravan was significantly slowed as they had to find grazing areas, a rarity in the desert, for the camels because one of the team members had skimped on buying fodder for the animals. Stromer could do nothing but fume.
The sunlight was so bright reflecting off of the white rocks that Stromer often had to wear his prescription sunglasses, and the air was so cold in the middle of winter that he more often than not walked beside the camels instead of riding, simply to generate some heat to stay warm.
Finally, after more than a week of marching, they arrived at their destination on January 11, 1911. Stromer thought that the rock in the valley came from the Eocene Epoch, where he would have found the skeletons of mammals, because he, like most other scientists of the time, believed the Eocene Epoch to be just a few million years before, and the end of the cretacious to be just a couple of million years earlier than that.
He was off by tens of millions of years; Ernst Stromer had walked right into the age of the dinosaurs.
Important Discovery The expedition team stayed in a small town called Mandisha during the expedition. The next day, his plans to start exploring were stopped by worsening weather that included, of all things, rain. He commenced to plan exploring the morning after, but around midnight a huge sandstorm blew into Mandisha that continued to rage on through the next day, forcing them all to stay in the tent.
Finally, on the 14 of January, the expedition was able to start. He was able to find little more than a fossilized shark vertebrae, fish teeth, and some petrified wood the first day. It was not until January 18 that his patience finally began to pay off.
Stromer was walking around the south flank of el Diest, he suddenly found, "three large bones which I attempt to excavate and photograph. The upper extremity is heavily weathered and incomplete [but] measures 110 cm long and 15 cm thick [about 43 by 6 inches]. The second and better one underneath is probably a femur [thighbone] and is wholly 95 cm long and, in the middle, also 15 cm thick [about 37 by 6 inches]. The third is too deep in the ground and will require too much time to recover." He also discovered that morning an ischium (one of the pelvic bones of a dinosaur), another vertebrae with "a convex end," and what he described as "a gigantic claw."
He regretfully wrote later in his journal, "I don't know how to conserve such gigantic species." He later cut up his mosquito netting and soaked them in a flour and water paste, covering the two larger bones in wrapping, following "an American technique taught to me by Markgraf."
Despite the huge success in el Dist, he still moved the entire team to the area near Gebel Hammad the next day. Several dinosaur, fish, and shark bones were found there, but after little more was recovered, they packed up and, two days later, left again, this time for the village of Ghauraq.
On February 18, 1911, Stromer began his long trip back to Germany. Over the next few years, he would announce a series of surprising, unique finds of dinosaurs from the Bahariya Oasis, which should have made him one of the most famous paleontologists of his era. They did not. Instead, he would be remembered for what he had lost.
Disaster Strikes In 1944 Stromer's fossil collection, including the only known (though incomplete) skeleton of Spinosaurus at the time, was destroyed when the museum in which it was held in Munich was bombed by the Royal Air Force.
For more information I can advise to read "The lost dinosaurs of Egypt" by William Nothdurft and Josh Smith, ISBN 0-375-75979-4
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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And for those who don't know what a spinosaurus is, it's that huge dinosaur with the large fan on its back that was featured in Jurrasic Park 3.
Posts: 26320 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: And for those who don't know what a spinosaurus is, it's that huge dinosaur with the large fan on its back that was featured in Jurrasic Park 3.
Tragically, they made the dinosaur into an over-powered monster that could kill a T. rex with a single bite (real spinosaurs' jaws were too slender and weak to do that; it's believed that spinosaurs were more into small game like fish or pterosaurs as opposed to big game like the tyrannosaurs and allosaurs).
Posts: 7101 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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^^Correct. And speaking of T-rex, they would always portray the creature as being a fast sprinter that could go 30mph when Paleontologists have actually performed biophysics tests using a reconstruction of T-rex's leg bones as well as attached muscles and performed simulations. All tests show that T-rex could likely have only ran at about 12mph. Which would make sense, since his prey usually consisted of slow-moving sauropods (large long-necked quadrapeds like apatosaurus [brontosaurus]). I also get irritated by that ridiculous portrayal that T-rex can only see you if you move, but if you stay still he's somehow blind to you! LOL I think that belief was based on studies of remains of T-rex olfactory bulbs and parts of his brain. According to the studies, T-rex sight would be very sensitive to movement but that doesn't mean he won't see you at all if you don't move! It's also said that he has a hightened sense of smell, so if even if you were hiding he'd still manage to get your scent.
Another thing to note is that similar to modern day lions, T-rex likely wasn't soley a predator but a scavenger also. Many carnivorous animals even if predatory are ultimately opportunists and won't miss a chance to eat already dead prey if available.
Posts: 26320 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^^Correct. And speaking of T-rex, they would always portray the creature as being a fast sprinter that could go 30mph when Paleontologists have actually performed biophysics tests using a reconstruction of T-rex's leg bones as well as attached muscles and performed simulations. All tests show that T-rex could likely have only ran at about 12mph.
Actually, I believe the scientists you're talking about estimated a range of 10-below 25 mph. Still too slow for a jeep. However, I actually think 10-25 mph is still quite fast and stately for an animal in T. rex's high size range.
quote:Which would make sense, since his prey usually consisted of slow-moving sauropods (large long-necked quadrapeds like apatosaurus [brontosaurus]).
I think most paleontologists suggest that hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, who also moved more slowly than T. rex, were T. rex's primary prey. There was a sauropod species, Alamosaurus, living in Cretaceous North America along with T. rex.
quote:I also get irritated by that ridiculous portrayal that T-rex can only see you if you move, but if you stay still he's somehow blind to you! LOL I think that belief was based on studies of remains of T-rex olfactory bulbs and parts of his brain. According to the studies, T-rex sight would be very sensitive to movement but that doesn't mean he won't see you at all if you don't move! It's also said that he has a hightened sense of smell, so if even if you were hiding he'd still manage to get your scent.
I agree, that's one of the movie's weaknesses. Not only was it inaccurate, taking that nonsense out would have made a even cooler movie with an even scarier T. rex.
I don't know of any research suggesting the "vision based on movement" thing. In fact, the dinosaur probably had quite good vision. For one, its eyes face partly forward, giving it stereoscopic, depth-perceiving vision.
quote:Another thing to note is that similar to modern day lions, T-rex likely wasn't soley a predator but a scavenger also. Many carnivorous animals even if predatory are ultimately opportunists and won't miss a chance to eat already dead prey if available.
That should be obvious, but unfortunately the public at large is too intellectually lazy. I really hate the whole predator/scavenger debate, as it's based on a false dichtonomy. Obligate scavengers (especially very big ones with teenage growth spurts) and obligate predators occur rarely in nature.
Posts: 7101 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Underpants Man: Actually, I believe the scientists you're talking about estimated a range of 10-below 25 mph. Still too slow for a jeep. However, I actually think 10-25 mph is still quite fast and stately for an animal in T. rex's high size range.
Agreed. But in the movie, I believe they clocked T. rex at going 30mph or something.
quote:I think most paleontologists suggest that hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, who also moved more slowly than T. rex, were T. rex's primary prey. There was a sauropod species, Alamosaurus, living in Cretaceous North America along with T. rex.
You're right I forgot about hadrosaurs and ceratopsians; either way, non of them move too fast.
quote:I agree, that's one of the movie's weaknesses. Not only was it inaccurate, taking that nonsense out would have made a even cooler movie with an even scarier T. rex.
I don't know of any research suggesting the "vision based on movement" thing. In fact, the dinosaur probably had quite good vision. For one, its eyes face partly forward, giving it stereoscopic, depth-perceiving vision.
I believe the scientists never said T. rex's vision was based on movement but that he would pick it up more easily like a canine or big cat. He definitely wasn't blind to you if you kept still though. LOL
quote:That should be obvious, but unfortunately the public at large is too intellectually lazy. I really hate the whole predator/scavenger debate, as it's based on a false dichtonomy. Obligate scavengers (especially very big ones with teenage growth spurts) and obligate predators occur rarely in nature.
I see you are aware of Jack Horner's research.
Maybe we need to start going on Paleontology forums to discuss more dinosaur stuff. Posts: 26320 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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