Article On The Archaeopteryx That's Going To Wyoming

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/12/08/news/wyoming/cff4658c4da8202d872570d100036328.txt

One of the world's best-preserved specimens of Archaeopteryx -- the 
earliest-known birdlike animal -- is headed for a small, privately owned 
museum in Thermopolis.

The Wyoming Dinosaur Center has acquired the precious 150 million-year-old 
fossil with the help of unnamed benefactors at a high but undisclosed 
price. A less-intact fossil of the Archaeopteryx fossil sold for $1.3 
million in 1999, according to the journal Science, which published details 
of the discovery this week.

Burkhard Pohl, one of three authors of the Science article, is founder of 
the 12,000-square-foot museum. He persuaded the widow of a Swedish fossil 
collector to sell the specimen to an anonymous donor willing to put the 
fossil on long-term display in Thermopolis.

A condition of the deal that Pohl negotiated is the commitment that the 
specimen will always remain in a museum or public institution, said Scott 
Hartman, museum science director.
...
The fossil will not be moved from Germany to Thermopolis until next fall, 
Hartman said. That gives the Wyoming Dinosaur Center time to install a 
high-tech security system to provide for the safety of the specimen.
...