Eduard Opitsch (1 February 1900 – 20 February 1991) was a German quarry owner whose name is associated to a specimen of the prehistoric bird ''

Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...

'', the '' Maxberg specimen''. The so-called Maxberg specimen of ''Archaeopteryx lithographica'' has been discovered in 1956 in his quarry in

Langenaltheim Langenaltheim is a municipality in the Middle Franconian district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in ...

.Archaeopteryx
www.stonecompany.com, The Maxberg "Opitsch" Specimen, accessed: 1 March 2011 Opitsch gave the fossil to the Maxberg Museum at

Solnhofen Solnhofen is a municipality in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in the region of Middle Franconia in the ' of Bavaria in Germany. It is in the Altmühl valley. The local area is famous in geology and palaeontology for Solnhofen limest ...

. In 1974 he reintegrated the fossil into his private collection. When Opitsch died in 1991, it was found that the ''Archaeopteryx'' specimen was missing from his collection. The whereabouts of the fossil are unknown, but several photographs and a cast of it exist. Locals from Solnhofen believe that Opitsch buried it to keep it from his heirs.

References

German collectors 1900 births 1991 deaths {{Germany-bio-stub