In the annual digs the Senckenberg Research Institute carries out in the Messel Pit, an average of 3,000 fossil remains are recovered from the shale at this UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site. Some particularly well-preserved fossils discovered in 2007 and 2008 were recently exhibited. The world-famous primeval horse browsed at the shores of Lake Messel in the warm, wet climate prevailing at that time (average annual temperature, 25°C). Around the lake, which emerged in a volcanic crater and was surrounded back then by dense primeval forest, early ungulates and rodents lived as well: the ancestors of today’s birds flew over...