Eduard Opitsch

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Eduard Opitsch (1900-1991) was a German quarry owner whose name is associated to a specimen of the prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx. The so-called Maxberg specimen of Archeopteryx lithographica has been discovered in 1956 in his quarry in Langenaltheim. Opitsch gave the fossil to the Maxberg Museum at Solnhofen. 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 is unknown, but several photographs of it exists. Locals from Solnhofen believe that Opitsch buried it to keep it from his heirs.