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 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