William Kattwinkel (27 March 1866, in Kierspe – 21 January 1935, in Partenkirchen) was a German neurologist and paleontologist.
After his military service Kattwinkel was a volunteer assistant to Hugo von Ziemssen and a guest student from 1900 to 1905 at Hôpital Salpêtrière and the Bicêtre in Paris.
From 1910-1911 Kattwinkel, with his wife, undertook a privately funded research trip to German East Africa to investigate sleeping sickness[2] In 1911 he discovered on the southeastern edge of today's Serengeti National Park a rich fossil-finding site that he named Olduvai Gorge after the Maasai word Oldupai for the sisal Sansevieria ehrenbergii and Sansevieria suffruticosa of the area.
[citation needed] He then resumed teaching in Munich at Ludwig Maximilian University, until the winter semester of 1934/35, as associate professor of internal medicine and neurology.
[3] Louis Leakey, who was especially known for his discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge, falsely labeled William Kattwinkel as a "butterfly collector" who accidentally unearthed the fossils deposit.