Werner Janensch

Werner Ernst Martin Janensch (11 November 1878 – 20 October 1969) was a German paleontologist and geologist.

Biography Janensch was born at Herzberg (Elster).

In addition to Friedrich von Huene, Janensch was probably Germany's most important dinosaur specialist from the early and middle twentieth century. His most famous and significant contributions stemmed from the expedition undertaken to the Tendaguru Beds in what is now Tanzania. where he worked as a curator, Janensch helped uncover an enormous quantity of fossils of late Jurassic period dinosaurs, including several complete Brachiosaurus skeletons, then the largest animal ever known. During his long subsequent career (he worked in Berlin from 1914 to 1961), Janensch named several new dinosaur taxa including Dicraeosaurus (1914) and Elaphrosaurus (1920). Janensch's Brachiosaurus were later determined to belong to a distinct, related genus, Giraffatitan.

In 1920 he married Paula Henneberg, daughter of the mathematician Ernst Lebrecht Henneberg; they had no children.

He died in 1969