Solnhofen Limestone, Archaeopteryx and Wrexham Museum

Wrexham Museum has opened a display, Archaeopteryx, in Gallery 2. An extravaganza of fossils from the Solnhofen Limestone quarry in Bavaria, southern Germany, the Museum has displays of a good many different species along with examples of Archaeopteryx fossils, which form the centrepiece of the whole display.

Some fun facts about Archaeopteryx:-

- Archaeopteryx were small, about the size of magpies;

- Only eleven Archaeopteryx fossils have ever been discovered, the eleventh being in 2011;

- Practically all of them come from the one site, the Solnhofen Plattenkalk.

This same quarry has yielded fossils such as crinoids, brittlestars, jellyfish, fish and horseshoe crabs, as well as one actual pterosaur fossil, about the size of a magpie, on display in Gallery 2.