The DinoBase Public Forum

Rico Stecher is the man behind Raeticodactylus and he deserves every plaudit that I can give him for his work. Palaeontology is a funny branch of science in some respects, and one of those is the highly significant contribution that can be made by amateurs to the field. Along with astronomy, palaeontology is the only branch of science I can name offhand where amateurs have the potential to have a major impact by finding new specimens. True there are guys in obscure parts of the world finding new species of living taxa, but with palaeo it seems to be so much more important and intensive. I am basically tied to my desk in the middle of a huge city, and while I hope to get out into the field this summer for a few weeks, the idea of going out for weeked after weeked on end is ridiculous. But in the quarries and along the beaches across the world thousands of amateurs are out every weekend and you never know what they might turn up. It is just the numbers game, they can massively outnumber the professionals and like the amateur astronomers, have the time and numbers to make the finds.

Still, there are plenty who will not realise what they have and ignore or discard it, damage it with a kack-handed preparation job, keep it, sell it, hide it, or give it to a museum that does not value it, or leave it to another ‘expert’ who wastes the opportunity. I must admit I know few amateur collectors and they have all been great and keen to learn and keen to help science, but I have heard of so many horror stories, and seen poor papers or worse specimens that I know there are plenty more out there who are either not as good as they think, or are actively disruptive to science by selling fossils or offering them to private collectors when museums would ahve been willing to pay nearly as much.

It is therefore a treat to have run into someone like Rico and I am genuinely pleased to know him and have had the opportunity to help him with his work. The story of Raeticodactylus from discovery to publication is pretty unique in modern times in my opinion. I am sure there are tons of exceptions in the literature that people can point me to, but for a non-professional researcher to do all that Rico has managed is no mean feat. He found the specimen, prepared it and described it. He effectively did every single part of the palaeo process alone and that is very impressive. Preparing something as valuable and delicate as a Triassic pterosaur is in itself some achievement, I have seen plenty of robust fossils wrecked by supposed professional preparators, and Rico has done a superb job.

For those who have never tried, describing a fossil is much harder than it might look and without the normal access to other specimens, researchers and libraries that come naturally to professionals it becomes a real struggle. In his own time and on his own money, Rico sought out other professionals who could help, travelled around Europe visiting museums and checking the other Triassic pterosaurs and put together a full formal description pretty much alone. I helped him with the English and suggested some minor editorial and grammatical switches, but that was about it (and of course we discussed pterosaurs!). You should see the edits I have had from my colleagues when I am describing material, so the fact that I could barely find a problem with it demonstrates the quality of his work. He then even took time off from his day-job as a teacher to come to Munich for the pterosaur meeting in October 2007.

The whole process from discovery to publication is a remarkable achievement, and dare I say it, a great example to many. He was perhaps overambitious in trying to do everything himself (however good the results), but the fact is that is first thoughts were to get the thing prepared properly, described properly, and put into a museum. He was no concerned with the ‘fame’ of discovery and description (in fact he was genuinely surprised that I thought other people might be interested in what he had done) just that he had a nice specimen and that science should have it. Coming off the back of various historical wrangles over specimens like Sue, Scelidosaurus, the Thermopolis Archaeopteryx and the ‘plumed’ Protoceratops, it is refreshing for collectors to think of the fossil and science first, and money and prestige (or the lack thereof) second.

I thought it would be nice to illustrate all of this and flesh out the whole thing on the pterosaur itelf with some words from Rico himself, and he has kindly agreed to an e-mail interview about his palaeontological activities. I sent him a list of questions a couple of weeks ago and he has replied. His English is not perfect, so I have tidied it up, but Rico has checked everything and is happy with it, so hopefully I am not putting words into his mouth. That will go up shortly, but well, I have a bit of background with Raetico. and I want to milk it for a few extra posts, so forgive me if I draw this out. :-)