Andrzej Elżanowski

Andrzej Elżanowski ( born January 21, 1950 in Przasnysz ) is a Polish ornithologist and paleontologist who deals with Mesozoic birds and Archaeopteryx. He is a professor at the Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

Elżanowski studied biology at the University of Warsaw with a Master 's degree in 1972 and his doctorate in 1979. He habilitated in 1996 at the University of Breslau ( Mesozoic evolution and main lines of the phylogeny of birds ). 1972 to 1983 he was a lecturer at the University of Warsaw and 1983 to 1998 he was at various universities in the U.S. and in Germany. From 1998 he was at the University of Wroclaw, Institute of Zoology, from 2003 as Titular Professor.

He described discoveries sooner birds from the Polish expeditions to Mongolia, so in 1981 an embryo and egg of Enantiornithes Gobipteryx and before this even from skull fragments.

Elżanowski described in 1992 with Peter Wellhofer the 1965 found in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia small theropod Archaeornithoides deinosauriscus who had many bird-like features. With Wellhofer he would then form a separate clade with basal birds, and Troodontidae Spinosauriern, but not sat down.

In 2001, he led the instance of Archaeopteryx in the mayor -Müller - Museum in Solnhofen ( first described in 1988 by Wellhofer ) a new species and genera description ( Wellnhoferia ), but which is not universally accepted.

He is engaged in Poland and in the ethics of animal testing.

The lawyer Marek Elżanowski (1941-1994) is his brother.

Writings

• Archaeopterygidae in Luis Chiappe, Lawrence Witmer (eds) Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs, Berkeley: University of California Press 2002
• Cretaceous birds and avian phylogeny, Cour. Forschungsinst. Senckenb. 181, 1995, 37-53