How Did Georges Cuvier Contribute?
When he lived:
Georges Cuvier was a famous French naturalist and zoologist who lived from 1769 to 1832.
Where he was raised, educated, and employed:
Son of an upper class Swiss Guard Lieutenant Jean Georges Cuvier, Georges was born to Anne Clémence Chatel in Montbéliard with the formal name Jéan Leopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier. Georges was taught at home by his mother and excelled academically. As a ten year-old, his interest in natural history was sparked by a copy of Gesner's Historie Animalium and he was inspired by Leclerc's Histoire Naturelle. Some referred to him as a first-rate naturalist at the age of twelve. In his early teen-aged years, he attended the gymnasium and was a leading scholar.
He attended the Caroline Academy in Stuttgart in his late teens, and then moved to Paris. In Paris, Cuvier was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at L'institut de France, where he was introduced to his peers by presenting a paper comparing the anatomy of modern and fossil elephants. He clearly separated African elephants, Asian elephants, and mastodons as distinct species. Then he presented a similar work on modern and extinct sloths. These two works were important in defining the concept of extinction. Indeed, it was the …show more content…
He thought several catastrophies resulted in the extinction of many species. Cuvier also described faunal succession in layers on sedimentary rock. He also identified the first pterosaur, which he named a pterodactyl, as well as the first monosaur. Georges speculated that giant reptiles were dominant vertebrates in a past era, and this speculation was not confirmed for more than two decades after his death. Cuvier said, "All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of
Georges Cuvier was a famous French naturalist and zoologist who lived from 1769 to 1832.
Where he was raised, educated, and employed:
Son of an upper class Swiss Guard Lieutenant Jean Georges Cuvier, Georges was born to Anne Clémence Chatel in Montbéliard with the formal name Jéan Leopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier. Georges was taught at home by his mother and excelled academically. As a ten year-old, his interest in natural history was sparked by a copy of Gesner's Historie Animalium and he was inspired by Leclerc's Histoire Naturelle. Some referred to him as a first-rate naturalist at the age of twelve. In his early teen-aged years, he attended the gymnasium and was a leading scholar.
He attended the Caroline Academy in Stuttgart in his late teens, and then moved to Paris. In Paris, Cuvier was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at L'institut de France, where he was introduced to his peers by presenting a paper comparing the anatomy of modern and fossil elephants. He clearly separated African elephants, Asian elephants, and mastodons as distinct species. Then he presented a similar work on modern and extinct sloths. These two works were important in defining the concept of extinction. Indeed, it was the …show more content…
He thought several catastrophies resulted in the extinction of many species. Cuvier also described faunal succession in layers on sedimentary rock. He also identified the first pterosaur, which he named a pterodactyl, as well as the first monosaur. Georges speculated that giant reptiles were dominant vertebrates in a past era, and this speculation was not confirmed for more than two decades after his death. Cuvier said, "All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of