Michael Wachtler


Michael Wachtler is an author and researcher from South-Tyrol.

Life

During the university he took part in expeditions into the mountains. Crystals and petrified fossils in particular aroused his interest. His teacher, Nolli Huber, fell to his death in 1984 while they were looking together for crystals. From 1980 to 1990, he was involved in the founding of the "Pustertaler Zeitung" and the "Rundschau von Vinschger", both of which are newspapers from South Tyrol.
During this period, he successfully published his first books and documentary films about the life of crystal hunters in the Alps and the history of the formation of the Dolomites.
Beginning from Michael Wachtler recovers primitive fossilised cycads and conifers from the Triassic. He collaborated with the Dutch professor Han van Konijnenburg – van Cittert in describing the discoveries in 2000.
In 1998 Michael Wachtler discovered the new fossil site Kühwiesenkopf and Piz da Peres. On the base of the Kühwiesenkopf Michael Wachtler recovered a part of a reptile described later by Silvio Renesto and Renato Posenato as Megachirella wachtleri. It is now regarded as the ancestor of all squamates including snakes and lizards. Soon it was classified as "Garden Eden of the primitive times".
In the mountains of Trentino, Michael Wachtler in cooperation with the forest-man Fèro Valentini, discovers in 2012 the new fossil site Tregiovo with enigmatic fossils. There 275 million years ago were deposited innumerable unknown plants and footprints from lacertoid reptiles.

Megachirella wachtleri

In 1999, Michael Wachtler recovered a partially preserved reptile-skeleton from the Kühwiesenkopf in the Pragser Dolomites. It was later described and given name by Silvio Renesto and Renato Posenato in 2003 as Megachirella wachtleri.  
Immediately, the importance of this fossil was recognized as pertaining to the crown group of squamata and also the lepidosauromorpha. But only in 2018, a group of scientists under the overall control of Tiago Simōes were able to classify Megachirella wachtleri as the oldest known stem squamate by using the new high-resolution microfocus X-ray computed tomography data.
The more than 242-million-year-old fossil, Megachirella wachtleri, is the oldest ancestor of all modern lizards and snakes, iguanas, chameleons, geckos, known as squamates. Megachirella is about 75 million years older than what was thought were the oldest fossil squamata in the world.

Important discoveries

3.1 New fossil ferns
An important fern and a famous woman geologist
The fern Gordonopteris lorigae was first found in well-preserved condition on the Kühwiesenkopf by Michael Wachtler. It is named after the Scottish geologist, palaeontologist and politician Marie Ogilvie Gordon. She was the first woman to be awarded with the title of Doctor of Science from the University of London and the first woman to be awarded with a PhD from the University of Munich. She was also a supporter and campaigner for the rights and equality of children and women.
The fern Wachtleria, a primitive Lindsaea
Wachtleria nobilis, discovered by Michael Wachtler and described by the Austrian palaeontologist Georg Kandutsch is the oldest known ancestor of the Lindsaeaceae, a tropical to subtropical fern family part of the Polypodiales. The Lindsaeaceae includes about 200 species distributed across South America, East Asia and New Zealand. Wachtleria nobilis highlights all the features of today's Lindsaeaceae with their slender stipes and fertile leaves with spores grouped on the outer margins of the leaves.
3.2 Strange surviving of arborescent lycopods in the Triassic
The giant Lycophyta dominated the swamp-jungles in the Carboniferous and it was thought that they declined in a relatively short time on the Permian border. Michael Wachtler discovers that in the Dolomites, the arborescent clubmosses experienced a new golden age in the Triassic, although – with regard to their size – on a lower level.
The enigma of the scale trees
One arborescent lycopod, probably descended from the Carboniferous Lepidodendrales, is represented by Lycopia dezanchei, first discovered and described by Michael Wachtler. It constitutes a highly interesting plant and a direct descendant of giant Lepidodendron, because it has ancestral affinities. It seems that some of the arborescent Lycophyta crossed the Permian by reducing their size and survived till the Mesozoic to occupy ecological niches. Extant Lycopodiales and Lycopia show a comparable root system with a reptant stem and rootlets, as well terminal strobili.
The last Sigillaria-lycopods
It was also thought that the other big group of Carboniferous Lycophyta, the Sigillariaceae, died out at the beginning of the Permian. Due to new discoveries in the Dolomites made by Michael Wachtler it can be stated that they played –although on a dwarfish base– an important role for understanding Triassic vegetation and its evolution in the Jurassic. Sigillcampeia, honouring Edith Campei the first discoverer, was characterised by its bonsai-like growth, and give a deep insight into the blueprint, growth and fertilisation of this lycopod family. The cones hold microsporangiate and also macrosporophylls with only one huge sporangia, that in other cases could also be regarded as a seed.
Another similar genus is represented by Eocyclotes alexawachtleri, characterized by a short stem and ending in a closely spaced foliage forming a rosette around which are arranged numerous tongue-like sporophylls. This lycopod was first found in the Braies Dolomites by Alexa Wachtler.
Ancestors of today's quillworts
Triassic Isoetites brandneri, discovered for the first time by Michael Wachtler in the Braies Dolomites, represents one of the oldest ancestors of today's Isoetes.
3.3 The mother of all cycads
In the 1990s Michael Wachtler began intensive research into fossil cycads, first in the Alps and then all over Europe which allowed him to recover sufficient remains from the Early Permian through the whole Triassic and until today. Wachtleropteris valentinii - honouring Michael Wachtler and Ferruccio Valentini – discovered in sediments from Early Permian, represents the most rudimental cycad gymnosperm. The shrubby plant was equipped with leaves that extended upwards on a stem and branched twice, which is not typical for today's cycads, and each of the leaves split into two independent branches. The arrangement of the cones on the end of a pinnate leaf identifies them as gymnosperms They can therefore be classified as "last representatives of a very old and primitive species having cycadalean affinities" from the Devonian until the Permian.
3.4 The search for the most primitive conifer
No other species of conifer exhibits such primitive features as Perneria thomsonii from the Carboniferous-Permian transition described first by Michael Wachtler. In many regards, with their double-Ypsilon terminal leaves and pointy-tipped emergences in the lower part, they are reminiscent of the progymnosperms from the Devonian.
3.5 Fèrovalentinia and the origin of the Pines
Early Permian Fèrovalentinia wachtleri, honouring Michael Wachtler, fossils which have been discovered in the Southern Alps can be regarded as the oldest member of the pine family. The astonishing changes that must have taken place in the short period of about five million years can be seen on the pine trees found just a few kilometres away in Tregiovo, which came from an later stage. In the meantime, the pines had clearly diverged along several lines. Valentinia angelellii still exhibited relatively short-needled, laciniate leaves, while Valentinia cassinissi, in contrast, was characterised by long-needled, bushy bundles similar to the modern, five-needle Swiss pine. The seed cones, however remained unchanged until today.
3.6 Researching the origin of angiosperms
Researches initiated by Michael Wachtler will attempt to explain the strange angiosperm-genesis with new theories based on surprising new findings in the Russian Ural-region. The evolution of flowering plants is one of the central questions of natural science. Some of the theories about isolated landmasses were evolved by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess. In his "Antlitz der Erde" in 1885, he hypothesized that in the Paleozoic era, there was a big paleo-continent in the north which he called Angara after a Siberian river, comprising parts of today's Russia with the Urals and Siberia. Several "flowers" from Early Permian sediments in the Urals discovered by Michael Wachtler evidences different stamen with anthers and a gynoecium, also with the impressions of some ovules. In the Early Permian period, several angiosperm lineages such as deciduous trees comprising maples, oaks, ash trees or stone-fruits as well as herbaceous flowers and grasses, dicots and monocots, were present. Once "invented" the bisexual flower, composed of stamen and carpel with surrounding petals, sepals or tepals, all further lineages can be deduced. Accompanied with the ascension of flowering plants, we have a coeval rising of all insect groups. The hypothesis of the hermaphroditic flowers was proved by Paleozoic findings, which means that the "Magnolia-theory," collapsed.
An audacious hypothesis can be searched in the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of earth's geological history – the forming of Siberian Traps – spanning one million years between the Permian–Triassic boundary, about 251 to 250 million years ago. Today, basaltic lava covers about 2 million square kilometres there, but the original extension is estimated at about 7 million square kilometres approximately in the region from Siberia over the former Angara-continent. The global catastrophe which happened 251 million years ago involved Angara more than other landmasses. It can be suggested that only with difficulties the angiosperms survived on some isolated refuges. Probably for a long time, till the Cretaceous, they were not able to expand on a large scale. In this case, the most involved victims of these mother of all catastrophes were the angiosperms.
3.7 Discovery of primitive dinosaur tracks
In 2007, Michael Wachtler discovered a new fossil site with interesting ichnospecies on the Piz da Peres mountain holding an exhausting near-shore paleoecosystem with numerous tetrapod tracks. Especially the new Sphingopus ladinicus-trackways were interesting because they showed a clear tendency towards bipedalism with a functionally three-toed pes as it was possible in the synapomorphies of basal dinosaurs. These characters are interpreted as possible synapomorphies of basal dinosaurs. Therefore, the tracks of Sphingopus ladinicus were interpreted as dinosauroid and not dinosaurian. More realistic would be to indicate them as ‘ancestors’ of dinosaurs or more exactly as an affiliated evolutionary-line.
3.8 Wachtlerosaurus
In 2017 Michael Wachtler discovered a small-sized Middle Triassic archosaur in the Dolomites. It was described by Thomas Perner as Wachtlerosaurus ladinicus. The skeleton was mostly complete; the skull is characterized by its powerful teeth, the ribs are slender. Since very little is known about the phylogenetically earliest members of the Avemetatarsalia, this new animal helps to fill a gap in the knowledge.

The great find of gold

In 2008 on Monte Rosa Michael Wachtler, with the twins Mario and Lino Pallaoro, Federico Morelli, Maurizio Petti and Georg Kandutsch make the biggest of gold discovery in the Alps in modern days. They found 30 kg of native gold. They started off from a forgotten map by a Swiss scientist.

Building the DoloMythos Museum and Imprisonment

Wachtler simultaneously focused on organizing exhibitions and concepts for museums. The most famous of which is the "Dolomythos" museum in Michael Wachtler's castle-like villa in Innichen. It illustrates the history of the Dolomites from its beginnings to the present day. In December 2010, a task force of the Carabinieri confiscated 3,700 fossil finds that were stored in the Dolomythos museum. The public prosecutor's office investigated him for the illegal possession of cultural objects. Michael Wachtler was accused of not having prepared the fossils properly. Wachtler regarded this sentence to be a "judgment against science".

Fighting against the destruction of nature

Unimpressed by the charges brought up and the prison sentences, Michael Wachtler is considered more and more to be the "warning voice" against the destruction of nature in the Dolomites. Although the DoloMythos Museum is in danger of being closed by the authorities, he continues to fight without pause and more than ever before to raise the awareness of humans for the fragile environment.
In 2011 together with the woodsman Fèro Valentini from the Non Valley, he studied the importance of wild plants to humans. He dug in the Early Permian fossil site¬ in Tregiovo in the Italian Non Valley and described primitive plants. In 2014 Michael Wachtler published the critical book "Gebt der Wildnis das Wilde zurück".

Publications