Prehistory of the Altmühl Valley

All animal models that can be seen in the glass case were produced on the basis of scientific findings by the palaeontologist Professor Erwin Rutte. The "bird" is the very first attempt at depicting in model form the oldest found "original bird", the Archaeopteryx, which was uncovered in the Jachenhausen quarry in 1861 by Hermann von Meyer.

Compsognathus longipes - "the elegant jaw with the long legs", was the smallest known meat-eating dinosaur. This skeleton, of which only two examples exist, was also found in the Jachenhausen quarry in 1858 by Josef Oberndorfer, whilst the second was found in southern France.

The flying dinosaurs - likewise built in model form by Professor Rutte - also come from Jachenhausen. Professor Rutte, who was a hobby pilot, always joked that "According to all understanding of aeronautics, these dinosaurs could not have flown at all. But they didn't know that, and so they just flew...!"