Scientist Georges Cuvier: biography, achievements, discoveries and interesting facts

Georges Cuvier - a great scientist-zoologist, the founder of comparative anatomy of animals and paleontology. This man amazes with his desire to study the world around him, and, despite some erroneous views, he made his considerable contribution to the development of science.

The Childhood of a Scientist

Cuvier was born August 23, 1769 in the city of Montbeliard, France. Little George was not smart for years: at the age of 4 he read well, and his mother taught drawing. The ability to paint was useful to the scientist and in his work on paleontology, where he hand-written illustrations to books. These illustrations were copied for a long time in other printed publications, so they were qualitatively and plausibly made.

Georges Leopold Cuvier lived in a poor Protestant family. His father was already at an age, served in the French army as a soldier, and the mother devoted her life to her son. She was engaged with him, and also raised to her feet after another illness (Cuvier often became ill in childhood).

Education

The school years of the future scientist flew by quickly. Georges Cuvier showed himself to be a talented student, but he had a rebellious character. Initially, it was planned that the boy would continue his education in the spiritual school and receive the title of pastor, but strained relations with the director did not allow him to become a priest of the Protestant church.

Further education Georges Cuvier received in the Karolinska Academy in the Department of the Office of Sciences (management of state property). Here, in Stuttgart, the scientist studied hygiene, law, national economy and finance. Already at the university he was fond of the animal world, so with his participation the circle "Academy" was organized. This association lasted 4 years - so much Georges studied at the faculty. The participants of the circle shared their small achievements in the study of nature, prepared speeches. The distinguished ones were given an improvised medal made of cardboard with the image of Lamarck.

Georges Cuvier - biography of the scientist at the crossroads of the life path

Four years of student life flew by unnoticed, and Georges returned home to his parents. My father already retired, my mother did not work. As a result, the family budget was practically empty, which, undoubtedly, could not be left without attention.

Then the scientist heard rumors that Count Erisi from Normandy was looking for a home teacher for his son. Being an educated man, Georges Cuvier gathered his suitcases and went to work part-time. The house of the famous Count was located on the beach, and this gave Georges the opportunity to see the marine inhabitants not only on paper, but also live. He boldly opened the starfish, sea worms, fish, crabs and crayfish, mollusks. Then Georges Cuvier was surprised at how difficult the structure at first sight is the simplest living organisms. Numerous vessels, nerves, glands and organ systems simply astonished the scientist. His work with marine animals was described in the journal Zoologichesky Vestnik.

The first studies in the field of paleontology

The end of the 18th century is the birth of paleontology. Cuvier, as the founder of this science, has made a great contribution to its development. His first experience is connected with the case when he received a parcel with the bones of the creature found in Maastricht. Hoffan (that's the name of the inhabitant of this city who found the remains) decided to send the skeleton to the already famous Cuvier to Paris. The "breadwinner" himself claimed that it could be the whale's bones. In turn, many scientists have found similarities with the skeleton of the crocodile, and the Maastrichtian church at all took bones for the remains of the saint and took them to himself as a relic.

Scientist Georges Cuvier refuted all these variants of the origin of the skeleton. After scrupulous work, he suggested that the remains belong to an ancient reptile that lived in the waters of Holland millions of years ago. This was indicated by the large size of the skeleton, including the spine, a huge head and jaw with many sharp teeth, which indicated a predatory lifestyle of the creature. Also Cuvier noticed the remains of ancient fish, mollusks and other aquatic creatures, which, apparently, this reptile was feeding on.

The creature was called a mozosaur that from the Greek can be translated as "reptile of the river Maas" (in French Meuse). This was the first serious scientific discovery of the scientist. After making an analysis of the remains of an unknown creature, Georges Cuvier initiated a new science - paleontology.

How was work with the remains

Georges Cuvier studied and systematized about forty species of various prehistoric animals. Some of them could only remotely resemble modern fauna representatives, but the overwhelming majority had nothing to do with cows, rams, deer.

The scientist also proved that the world used to be the reptilian kingdom. Water and land have become home to a large number of different types of dinosaurs. Even the sky was dominated by pterodactyls, not birds, as other researchers believed.

Georges Cuvier developed his method of studying the remains. As a result, based on the skeleton of the animal and the knowledge that all parts of the body are interconnected, he could guess what the creature actually looked like. As practice showed, his work was very plausible.

Georges Cuvier: contribution to biology

Continuing the study of animals, the scientist began to analyze the similarities and differences between them. As a result, he became the founder of this trend in science, as a comparative anatomy. His theory of "correlation of parts of the body" says that all organs and structures are interconnected, and their structure and functional depend on environmental conditions, nutrition, reproduction.

For example, analysis of an ungulate animal can be given. It feeds on grass, which means it must have massive teeth. Because the powerful jaw requires a highly developed musculature, the head will also be large in size relative to the rest of the body. Such a head must be supported, which means that the vertebrae of the cervical region and their processes will be developed. A herbivorous mammal, without fangs or claws, must somehow protect itself from predators. As a result, horns appeared. Vegetable food is digested for a long time, which leads to the development of a bulk stomach and a long intestine. A developed digestive system is the reason for having wide ribs and a large belly.

Further work in the field of paleontology led to the discovery of many unseen creatures. Among them, pterodactyls are flying reptiles, which were predators before and fed on fish. So Georges Cuvier proved that millions of years ago the sky was under the reptilian power, not birds.

Theory of catastrophes

Georges Cuvier, whose biography was associated with the development of paleontology, led his idea of the evolution of living organisms. Studying the remains of ancient beings, the scientist noticed one regularity: in the surface layers of the earth's crust there are animal bones that have at least the slightest similarities with modern species, and in deeper layers - the skeletons of prehistoric creatures.

Despite this discovery, Georges Cuvier contradicted himself. The fact is that he denied evolution as a whole, as a result of which the scientist offered his theory of the development of fauna on the planet. Cuvier suggested that, at uncertain intervals, a piece of land was flooded by the sea, and all living organisms perished. After that, water retired, and in the new place other organisms with fundamentally new features of the structure of the body emerged. When asked where these animals could come from, scientists could only guess. The theory of catastrophes is reactionary, since its appearance was an attempt to reconcile science and religion.

Georges Cuvier's ideas about the evolution of fauna could have arisen because of the fact that at the time of the development of paleontology, transitional forms between individual species of animals were not found. As a consequence, there was no reason to assume a phased evolutionary development of organisms. Only Darwin proposed a similar theory, but it happened after the death of Georges Cuvier.

The differences between the classification of Linnaeus and Cuvier

Working with animals and studying their structure, Georges Cuvier briefly systematized all representatives of the fauna into four types:

1. Vertebrates. This included all animals with a dismembered skeleton. Examples: birds, reptiles (reptiles and amphibians), mammals, fish.

2. Radiant. In this group, all the representatives of the fauna that possessed the radial symmetry of the body, which is characteristic, for example, of a starfish, were collected.

3. Soft-bodied. They are animals with a soft body encased in a solid shell. These include cuttlefish, mussels, oysters, grape snails, pond snuff, octopus, etc.

4. Arthropods. Animals belonging to this group have a powerful outer skeleton in the form of a solid carapace, and the whole body is divided into many segments. Examples: centipedes, insects, crustaceans, arachnids. Some worms were mistaken here.

Linnaeus, unlike Georges Cuvier, distinguished 6 such types: reptiles, birds, mammals, fish, insects and worms (here amphibians belong to the reptiles). From the point of view of systematics, the classification of animals according to Cuvier turned out to be more perfect, and therefore it was used for a long time.

An interesting fact from the life of a scientist

One day, the student Cuvier decided to play a trick on him. To do this, he wore a sheep suit and, while the teacher slept, quietly approached his bed. He exclaimed: "Cuvier, Cuvier, I'll eat you!" Georges, through his sleep, groped for his horns and saw hoofs, then calmly replied: "You're not a predator, you can not eat me."

There is also a quote from Cuvier that all organs and parts of the animal's body are interrelated. It says that "the organism is a coherent whole. Certain parts of it can not be changed without causing changes to others. "

Achievements

An outstanding scientist in the field of paleontology at the time was Georges Cuvier. A brief biography says that in 1794 the scientist worked in a new museum of natural history. There he wrote the first works on entomology, which became the beginning of serious scientific activity.

In 1995, Cuvier began to live in Paris. A year later he occupied the Department of Anatomy of Animals in the Sorbonne and was appointed a member of the National Institute. A couple of years the scientist became the head of the comparative anatomy department of the same University of Paris.

For scientific achievements, Georges Cuvier received the title of peer of France and became a member of the French Academy.

Conclusion

Cuvier made a tremendous contribution to the development of comparative anatomy and paleontology. His work became the foundation for further study of animals, and his classification was preserved for a long time. And let him leave a number of misconceptions in the field of evolution, the scientist is worthy of praise and recognition for numerous works.

Georges Cuvier died on May 13, 1832.