Johann Leonard Hoffmann

Johann Leonard Hoffmann (1710-1782) was a Maastricht army surgeon and amateur geologist who collected fossils from the local Mount Saint Peter. He was one of three people involved in the discovery of Mosasaurus fossil finds at the site, including the celebrated second specimen known as le grand animal, unearthed in the 1770s and later taken to Paris by the French Revolutionary Army in 1794. Two extinct species, the giant turtle Allopleuron hoffmani and the monitor lizard Varanus hoffmani, are named after him.