Portal:Marine life/Selected Biography/April, 2007

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Nicholai Nicholaevich Miklukho-Maklai (Николай Николаевич Миклухо-Маклай in Russian) (1846 – 1888) was a Russian ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist.

Miklukho-Maklai was born in a temporary workers camp near Novgorod, a son of a civil engineer working on the construction of the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway. He attended a grammar school in Saint Petersburg, then went on to study at St. Petersburg University.

He travelled and studied widely in Europe, and became a close friend of the biologist Anton Dohrn, with whom he helped conceive the idea of "research stations" while staying with him at Messina, Italy.

Miklukho-Maklai left St Petersburg for Australia on the schooner Vityaz. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July, 1878. A few days after arriving, he approached the Linnean Society and offered to organise a zoological centre. In September 1878 his offer was approved. The centre, known as the Maritime Biological Centre, was constructed by prominent Sydney architect, John Kirkpatrick. This was the first marine biological research institute in Australia.

He visited Papua New Guinea on a number of occasions, and lived amongst the native tribes, writing a comprehensive treatise on their way of life and customs.

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