Dicraeosaurus sattleri Janensch, 1914

Stoecker, Holger & Ohl, Michael, 2024, Taxonomies at Tendaguru: How the Berlin Dinosaurs Got Their Names, Deconstructing Dinosaurs: The History of the German Tendaguru Expedition and Its Finds, 1906 – 2023, Brill, pp. 233-254 : 2-3

Dicraeosaurus sattleri Janensch, 1914

When Werner Janensch wrote the species description for this dinosaur, he chose the specific name sattleri to honor Wilhelm Bernhard Sattler, a mining engineer who worked for a German colonial prospecting company called Lindi Schürfgesellschaft. Janensch prefaced his description with these words: “I dedicate the species described in the following [pages] to the discoverer of the dinosaur find site at Tendaguru, Mr. W. B. Sattler, an ever-helpful supporter of the expedition’s work.” 50 This identification of Sattler as the discoverer of the finds ensured his place in paleontological history but was not correct: he was merely the first European to view the fossils and subsequently relay news of them back to Germany. It was an African employee of the prospecting company that possessed knowledge of the site and led Sattler to it (see “Minerals and the Maji Maji War,” pp. 17–30).

Sattler later helped paleontologist Eberhard Fraas conduct the first expert assessment of the site in 1907 and assisted the expedition in the first few months of excavations in 1909. He was a valuable partner to have, as he spoke several European and African languages and knew the local communities well. Sattler had lived in Africa since 1894, initially in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he completed training to become a pharmacist and subsequently worked as a chemist in a mining company. He moved to German East Africa in 1901, and in 1904 took part in a geological expedition to the hinterlands of Lindi led by Wilhelm Arning. Not long afterwards, he started working as a prospector and local operations head for Lindi Prospecting Company. He fought on the side of the Germans in the Maji Maji War in 1905 and “volunteered his Wanyamwesi workers as an auxiliary force.” 51 In 1907, he received the “Royal Prussian Order of the Crown 4th Class with Swords on a black and white ribbon” (Königlich-Preussischen Kronenorden 4. Klasse mit Schwertern am schwarz-weissen Bande) for his “successful action in combating the East African insurgency of 1906/07.” 52 The following year, in 1908, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross Second Class of the Royal Württemberg Order of Friedrich (Ritterkreuz II. Klasse des Königlich-württembergischen Friedrichs-Ordens) for services provided to Fraas’s Tendaguru expedition. 53 For his assistance in excavating the Tendaguru fossils, his name was put forward for the Order of the Red Eagle (Roter Adler Orden) in 1912. During that same year, he managed a plantation owned by the German East Africa Company (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft) in Mikesse, not far from the town of Morogoro, 54 and co-founded a plantation company of his own called Voertmann – Sattler Pflanzungen.

Sattler had a reputation among his contemporaries as a colonial pragmatist who felt comfortable working with Africans. 55 This made him an ideal middleman between the German scientists and local African communities. A self-made man with a strong independent streak, he occasionally came into conflict with the law, as in 1911 and 1913, when he was investigated for hunting violations and the illegal possession of explosives. 56 In 1914, Sattler was part of an advance party sent to explore Olduvai Gorge in the north of the colony. His employer was Wilhelm Kattwinkel, a Munich-based neurologist and paleontologist whose plans to conduct a dig in the area were scuppered by the outbreak of World War I. During the war, Sattler served as a non-commissioned officer in the colonial army (Kaiserliche Schutztruppe). He died on October 25, 1915, when an African soldier under his command shot him while attempting to desert. 57 An item published in a scientific journal of the time offers a different account of Sattler’s death, according to which he was killed in a British prisoner of war camp. 58