Wellnhoferia, a bird closely related to Archaeopteryx, or a species of the Urvogel itself, was named in his honor.
Discovered in the 1960s near Eichstätt, Germany and described in 1988 by Wellnhofer (as a specimen of Archaeopteryx) it is currently located at the Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum in Solnhofen.
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Andrzej Elżanowski (2001) of the Institute of Zoology of the University of Wrocław, Poland, determined the differences resulted from a "phylogenetic reduction rather than individual variation."