Timeline of zoology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A preliminary timeline of the history of zoology before the 1859 publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.

Contents 1 Ancient world 2 Middle Ages 3 Modern world 4 Nineteenth century 5 References 6 External Links

[edit] Ancient world

• 10000 BC - Man (Homo sapiens) domesticated dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, fowl, and other animals in Europe, northern Africa and the Near East.^[1]

• 6500 BC. The aurochs, ancestor of domestic cattle, would be domesticated in the next two centuries if not earlier (Obre I, Yugoslavia). This fierce beast was the last major food animal to be tamed for use as a source of milk, meat, power, and leather in the Old World.
  

  

  Lascauux aurochs Stone age

• 5000 BC. Cave and rock paintings in Europe, especially Spain, depict animals in a stylized fashion. Can these paintings, showing animals as strong and important, be interpreted as veneration? Mammoths (the same species later to be seen thawing from ice in Siberia) were depicted in these European cave paintings.

• 3500 BC. Sumerian animal-drawn wheeled vehicles and plows are developed in Mesopotamia, the region called the "Fertile Crescent" by U.S. archaeologist James Henry Breasted (1865-1935). Irrigation may also have used animal power. By increasing the area under cultivation and reducing the number of people required to raise food, society will permit a few people to become priests, artisans, scholars, and merchants. Since Sumeria had no natural defenses, armies with mounted cavalry and chariots became imperative and were a scourge upon the land they purported to protect. Civilization was thus built on the backs of equines (horses and asses).

• 3000 BC. Domestication of the silkworm in China must have required patience.

• 1100 BC. Won Chang (China), first of the Chou emperors, stocked his imperial zoological garden with deer, goats, birds and fish from many parts of the world. Like zoos today, the animals may have been seen as exotic, alien, and possibly threatening.

• 850 BC. Homer (Greek), reputedly a blind poet, wrote the epics Iliad and Odyssey. Both contain animals as monsters and metaphors (gross soldiers turned into pigs by the witch Circe), but also some correct observations on bees and fly maggots. Both epics make reference to mules. The ancient Greeks considered horses so highly that they "hybridized" them with humans, to form boisterous centaurs. At any rate, animals are used as metaphors and moral symbols by Homer to make a timeless story.

• 800 BC. Hebrew authors of the Bible's Old Testament gave the Near Eastern fauna little importance on the whole, except as moral symbols (e.g., "the lamb of God"). Animals were classified as "clean" and "unclean" for purposes of consumption in Leviticus. Genesis 1: 20 included a crude classification of animals as creeping animals, fowl, whales, cattle, beasts and man.^[2] The Law of Moses in Deuteronomy imposed dietary restrictions, permitting meat only from any animal "that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two, and chews the cud," but proscribing meat from camels, hares, and rock badgers as well as pigs. Also proscribed as "unclean" are fish without fins and scales, certain birds, and anything "that dies of itself." Moreover, there is the classic admonition: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."

• 639 BC. Thales of Miletus (Greek, 639 BC-544 BC) thought water was the basis of life.

• 610 BC. Anaximander (Greek, 610 BC-545 BC) was a student of Thales of Miletus. He was the first to describe the Earth as a sphere, but was he also an early evolutionist? The first life, he taught, was formed by spontaneous generation in the mud. Later animals came into being by transmutations, left the water, and reached dry land. Man was derived from lower animals, probably aquatic. His writings, especially his poem "On Nature," were read and cited by Aristotle and other later philosophers, but are lost.

• 600 BC. Aesop (Greek), a slave, was unexcelled in the personification of animals in his fables. (Do not forget Hans Christian Anderson (Dane, 1805-1875), and the German brothers Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1856) Grimm in this connection.) Animals, given human voices and traits, are still used to amuse and teach morals.

• 570 BC. Anaximenes (Greek, 570-500 BC) held that air was the life-giving principle.

• 563? BC. Buddha (Indian, 563?-483 BC) had gentle ideas on the treatment of animals. Animals are held to have intrinsic worth, not just the values they derive from their usefulness to man.

• 500 BC. Empedocles of Agrigentum (Greek, 504-433 BC) reportedly rid a town of malaria by draining nearby swamps. He proposed the theory of the four humors and a natural origin of living things. Survival of the fittest was also hinted at.

• 500 BC. Alcmaeon (Greek, ca. 500 BC) performed human dissections. He identified the optic nerve, distinguished between veins and arteries, and showed that the nose was not connected to the brain. He made much of the tongue and explained how it functioned. He also gave an explanation for semen and for sleep.

• 500 BC. Xenophanes (Greek, 576-460 BC), a disciple of Pythagoras (?-497 BC), first recognized fossils as animal remains and inferred that their presence on mountains indicated the latter had once been beneath the sea. "If horses or oxen had hands and could draw or make statues, horses would represent the forms of gods as horses, oxen as oxen." Galen (130?-201?) revived interest in fossils that had been rejected by Aristotle, and the speculations of Xenophanes were again viewed with favor.

• 470 BC. Democritus of Abdera (Greek, 470-370 BC) made dissections of many animals and humans. He was the first Greek philosopher-scientist to propose a classification of animals, dividing them into blooded animals (Vertebrata) and bloodless animals (Evertebrata). He also held that lower animals had perfected organs and that the brain was the seat of thought.

• 460 BC. Hippocrates (Greek, 460?-377? BC), the "Father of Medicine," used animal dissections to advance human anatomy. Fifty books attributed to him were assembled in Alexandria in the Third Century BC. These probably represent the works of several authors, but the treatments given are usually conservative.

• 440 BC. Herodotus of Halikarnassos (Greek, 484-425 BC) treated exotic fauna in his Historia, but his accounts are often based on tall tales. He explored the Nile, but much of ancient Egyptian civilization was already lost to living memory by his time.

• 384 BC. Aristotle (Greek, 384-322 BC) studied under Plato, but he was not reluctant to disagree with the master. His books Historia Animalium (9 books), De Partibus Animalium, and De Generatione Animalium set the zoological stage for centuries. He emphasized the value of direst observation, recognized law and order in biological phenomena, and derived conclusions inductively from observed facts. He believed that there was a natural scale that ran from simple to complex. He made advances in the area of marine biology, basing his writings on keen observation and rational interpretation as well as conversations with local Lesbos fishermen for two years, beginning in 344 BC. His account of male protection of eggs by the barking catfish was scorned for centuries until Louis Agassiz confirmed Aristotle's description. Aristotle's botanical works are lost, but those of his botanical student Theophrastos of Eresos (372-288 BC) are still available (Inquiry into Plants).

• 340 BC. Plato (Greek, 427-347 BC) held that animals existed to serve man, but they should not be mistreated because this would lead people to mistreat other people. Others who have echoed this opinion are St. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and Albert Schweitzer.

• 323 BC. Alexander the Great (Macedonian, 356-323 BC) collected animals, some perhaps for his old teacher Aristotle, when he was not busy conquering the known world. He is credited with the introduction of the peacock into Europe. Aside from its decorative tail feathers, the peacock (a pheasant) was eaten regularly by Europeans until the arrival of the turkey. (Charlemagne is said to have served thousands at a single bash.) A humorous novel by L. Sprague Decamp tells the story of some soldiers who had the task of taking an elephant sent by Alexander to his beloved Aristotle.

• 304 BC. Erasistratus of Iulis (304-? BC) was a rival to Herophilus. He observed the valves of the heart. He was opposed to violent cures such as blood-letting.

• 300 BC. Herophilus of Chalcedon (ca. 300 BC) was an anatomist at Alexandria, Egypt. He undertook many dissections of human bodies, some still alive according to various sources. He distinguished between veins and arteries, and said that both normally contained blood. He measured pulse rate and used drugs and blood-letting. He described the brain as the center of the nervous system and seat of intelligence.

• 218 BC. Hannibal (Carthaginian, 247?-183 BC) crossed the Alps with a troop of elephants to wage the Second Punic War against the Romans on their home turf.

• 95 BC. Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) (Roman, 96?-55 BC) spent his whole life writing one poem (still unfinished), called De Rerum Natura, with a version of the atomic theory, a theory of heredity, etc.

• 70 BC. Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) (70-19 BC) was a famous Roman poet. His poems Bucolics (42-37 BC) and Georgics (37-30 BC) hold much information on animal husbandry and farm life. His Aeneid (published posthumously) has many references to the zoology of his time.

• 44 BC. Galius Julius Caesar (Roman, 100-44 BC) had a horse with "feet" or, at least, supernumerary digits. He did not burn the famous library at Alexandria, as some charge, but he did have a battle there that resulted in the loss of thousands of scrolls. The famous library at Alexandria was sacked by the Christians in 391 and the Mohammedans in 646. We can only speculate on what zoological knowledge was lost.

• 43 BC. Ovid (Roman, 43 BC-AD 17?) in his Metamorphoses relates cases of gods and men turning into animals, usually with interesting, ribald results. The amusement value of animals should not be underestimated: Disney still banks on it.

• 36 BC. Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) wrote De Re Rustica, a treatise that includes apiculture. He also treated the problem of sterility in the mule and recorded a rare instance in which a fertile mule was bred.

• 30 BC. Cleopatra (Egyptian queen, 69-30 BC) committed suicide by letting an asp bite her. Why not a king cobra? What kind of poisonous snake is an asp? It would appear to be a rear-fang, in any case. Must have been difficult.

• 32 AD. Jesus of Nazareth (Israeli, 4 BC-36 AD) goes on record saying that disease is not a punishment for sin (John, chapter 9, verse 3). In an emotion-charged farewell dinner (Last Supper) Jesus uses the metaphor of blood to symbolize his teachings. Blood (in the sense of heritage) is still current coin.

• 41. Caligula (Roman, 12-41), emperor, appointed his horse as consul. (Teenage Emperor Vitellius served flamingo tongues to his gluttonous guests at an orgy in 80 AD.)

• 50. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Roman, 4 BC-AD 65), tutor to Roman emperor Nero, was a learned man of culture who, nevertheless, ended his life by committing suicide. He maintained that animals have no reason, just instinct, a "stoic" position. He remarked on the ability of glass globes filled with water to magnify small objects.

• 64. Pedanios Dioscorides (Greek, 54-68) wrote Materia Medica in which he gives many medical remedies, some based on animals. Dioscorides was surgeon in the armies of Roman emperor Nero (37-68).

• 77. Pliny the Elder (Roman, 23-79) wrote his Historia Naturalis in 37 volumes. This work is a catch-all of zoological folklore, superstitions, and some good observations.

• 79. Pliny the Younger (Roman, 62-113), nephew of Pliny the Elder, inherited his uncle's notes and wrote to good effect on bee keeping.

• 100. Plutarch (Roman, 46?-120) stated that animals' behavior is motivated by reason and understanding. Life of the ant mirrors the virtues of friendship, sociability, endurance, courage, moderation, prudence, and justice.

• 100 ca. Roman gladiators, early Christians, and condemned criminals fight lions, bears, tigers, and other wild animals for public entertainment. Ancient Crete had contests in jumping over bulls, and the palace of Minos at Knossos may have been the original home of the Minotaur. Bullfights are still popular in Spain and Hispanic Latin America. (One person was killed in 1995 in the Poloma bull run.) Ancient Romans also had live animal acts at their circuses.

• 125. Lucius Apuleius (Roman, 125-?) was a writer. His scientific writings are lost, but his ribald story The Golden Ass relates the erotic adventures of an unfortunate playboy changed into a donkey by the careless use of black magic and forced to wander in his animal body for months before regaining human form.

• 131. Galen of Pergamum (Greek, 131?-201?), physician to Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, wrote on human anatomy from dissections of animals. His texts were used for hundreds of years, gaining the reputation of infallibility.

• 200 ca. Various compilers in post-classical and medieval times added to the Physiologus (or, more popularly, the Bestiary), the major book on animals for hundreds of years. Animals were believed to exist in order to serve man, if not as food or slaves then as moral examples.

• 304. Caelius Lactantius (Ferminianus) (Roman, 260-340) was a convert to Christianity who wrote the Divinarum Institutionum (304-311) to show that perfection in nature is the revelation of a divine plan. Genesis was made dogma, and the snake has never recovered from this slander.

• 354-430. Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) wrote that all human races were descended from Adam, and that all rational creatures had souls. Animals were held to be soulless. He calculated the age of the world as 6000 years. See his Civitas Dei and De Moribus Manichaeorum.

[edit] Middle Ages

• 600 ca. Isidorus Hispalensis (Spanish bishop of Seville) (560-636) wrote Origines sive Etymologiae, a compendium on animals that served until the rediscovery of Aristotle and Pliny. Full of errors, it nevertheless was influential for hundreds of years. He also wrote De Natura Rerum.

• 800. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contain zoological references. See the tenth tale ("Monks Chapel"). Again, animals are used to teach morals and to entertain.

• 800 ca. Animals were often sentenced for crimes and punished under the law. This happened as recently as 2007.

• 868. Al-Jahiz (Arab, ?-868 or 869), a scholar at Basra, wrote on animals, especially their psychology and hybridization. He wrote the Book of Mongrels, Book of Blacks and Whites (his grandfather was a freed Negro slave), Book of Mules (he tried to figure out why they did not breed), Book of Women, Book of the Wheat and the Palm, and most importantly for zoology, the Book of Animals. This latter book is a truly Arabian contribution. Spontaneous generation is admitted for some animals. Other animals were derived from plants. Animals have traces of human traits and, conversely, humans have animal traits. The chasm that separates humans and animals is bridged by numerous intermediate forms yet to be discovered. All sorts of sexual aberrations between animals and humans were held to exist but these were, the author stated, unsuited for life.

• 870 ca. Alfred the Great, West Saxon King (849-899), when defeated in a battle before the consolidating his rule, retreated to a humble cottage where he watched a spider repeatedly try to spin her web. Taking a lesson from the arachnid (an early version of Charlotte's Web), the future king decided to try again and was successful.

• 901. Horses came into wider use in those parts of Europe where the three-field system produces grain surpluses for feed, but hay-fed oxen were more economical, if less efficient, in terms of time and labor and remained almost the sole source of animal power in southern Europe, where most farmers continued to use the two-field system.

• 980. Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) (Arab, 980-1037) wrote Cannon of Medicine, still Aristotelian in nature, which almost supplanted Galen's as the standard medical text.

• 1100 ca. Paris cathedral Notre Dame was built with many gargoyles, symbolizing humans who have succumbed to temptations of the flesh and have been transformed into brutes.

• 1100. European witch hunters had a field day. The Maleus Malfactorum had much to say (mostly bad) about animals used in witches' black Sabbaths. Animals were seen as demons.

• 1114. Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187), after the capture of Toledo and its libraries from the Moors, translated Ptolemy, Aristotle, Euclid, Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny and many other classical authors from the Arabic.

• 1126. Averroes (Ibn-Rushd) (Arab, 1126-1198), a medical scholar, offered his original thinking as commentaries on Aristotle. His zoological commentaries are lost.

• 1170. Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote Physica, dealing with animals such as the unicorn that could only be captured by a virgin.

• 1205. Saint Francis of Assisi (Italian, 1182?-1226) had visions involving a wolf. His pantheism embarrassed the church. He preached that man was not supreme over animals and that these should be recognized as fellow inhabitants of the Earth.

• 1225-1274. Saint Thomas Aquinas (Italian, 1225?-1274) set himself to the task of harmonizing Aristotle and the Church. He succeeded all too well.

• 1235. Roger Bacon (English, 1214-1292) announced the invention of spectacles (in 1235). Bacon was a know-it-all, not concerned with animals per se, but he was quite influential. He promoted observation and experimentation. Although he did not invent gun powder, he knew of it.

• 1244-1248. Frederick II von Hohenstaufen (Holy Roman Emperor) (1194-1250) wrote De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (The Art of Hunting with Birds) as a practical guide to ornithology. Hawking was the sport for royalty in those days.

• 1244. Vincentius Bellovacensis (Vincent of Beauvais) (?-1264) wrote Speculum Quadruplex Naturale, Doctrinale, Morale, Historiale (1244-1254), a major encyclopedia of the 13th century. This work comprises three huge volumes, of 80 books and 9,885 chapters. His method was to quote all the authors of antiquity, even if they disagreed with one another.

• 1248. Thomas of Cantimpré‚ (Flemming, 1204?-1275?) wrote Liber de Natura Rerum, a major 13th century encyclopedia.

• 1254-1323. Marco Polo (Italian, 1254-1323) provided information on Asiatic fauna, revealing new animals to Europeans. "Unicorns" (rhinos?) were reported from southern China, but fantastic animals were otherwise not included. This was the rebirth of the travel book, after the earlier success of Herodotus.

• 1255-1270. Albertus Magnus of Cologne (Bavarian, 1206?-1280) (Albert von Bollstaedt or St. Albert) wrote De Animalibus. He promoted Aristotle but also included new material on the perfection and intelligence of animals, especially bees.

• 1265. Dante Alighieri (Italian, 1265-1321) wrote the Inferno that has unique (at least not previously known) animal images and metaphors.

• 1304-1309. Petrus de Crescentii wrote Ruralum Commodorum, a practical manual for agriculture with many accurate observations on insects and other animals. Apiculture was discussed at length.

• 1309-1374. Konrad von Megenberg (Swiss, 1309-1374) wrote Das Puch der Natur as a moralizing translation of Liber de Natura Rerum but with some original observations. The question of hybrids was treated uncritically (indeed, anything goes).

• 1348-1350. European populations suffer the Black Death (plague) and almost one in every three persons died. Wolves returned to prey on survivors as forests reclaimed agricultural lands. In northern countries, the pneumatic form of the disease took an enormous toll in the closed winter dwellings. The rat, the flea, and the plague bacillus are still with us.

• 1453. The fall of Constantinople to the Turks ended the Byzantine Empire. Greek manuscripts became known in Europe, including books by Aristotle and Theophrastos that were translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza (Greek, ?-1478).

• 1456. Johannes Gutenberg (German, 1400?-1468?) printed the Bible with movable type in Germany.

• 1492-1555. Edward Wotton (English, 1492-1555) wrote De Differentiis Animalium, a well thought-out work that influenced Gesner. It was, however, Aristotelian in nature.

• 1492. Christopher Columbus (Italian) arrives in the New World. New animals soon begin to overload European zoology. Columbus is said to have introduced cattle, horses, and eight pigs from the Canary Islands to Hispanhola in 1493, giving rise to virtual devastation of that and other islands. Pigs were often set ashore by sailors to provide food on the ship's later return. Feral populations of hogs were often dangerous to humans.

• 1500 ca. Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519) studies human anatomy for his paintings. Animal nutrition he compared to the burning of a candle. His notebooks with all his findings were not made public until late in the 19th century. His notebooks also contain about a hundred fables, many with animals.

• 1500 ca. Michaelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564) also studied human anatomy in order to better depict the body.

• 1500 ca. Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bambastus von Hohenheim) (Swiss or German?, 1493-1541), alchemist, wrote that poisons should be used against disease. He recommended mercury for treating syphilis. Otherwise, his numerous writings are without value. He was a mystic and demagogue for the most part. (Nevertheless, it might be interesting to read his book with the title On Nymphs, Giants, Idiots, Wolfmen and Sheepmen.)

• 1519-1520. Bernal Diaz del Castillo (Spanish, 1450?-1500), chronicler of Cortez's conquest of Mexico, commented on the zoological gardens of Aztec ruler Montezuma (1480-1520), a marvel with parrots, rattlesnakes, etc.

• 1523. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés(Spanish, 1478-1557), appointed official historiographer of the Indies in 1523, wrote Sumario de la Natural Historia delas Indias (Toledo, 1527). He was the first to describe many New World animals, such as the tapir, opossum, manatee, iguana, armadillo, ant-eaters, sloth, pelican, humming birds, etc. Bartolemeu de las Casas said the book contained "almost as many lies as pages."

• 1532. Francisco Pizarro (Spanish conquistador) captured and murdered Inca ruler Atahualpa, who was said to have had a cloak made of thousands of bat skins.

• 1537-1619. Hieronymus Fabricius (Fabricius of Aquapendente) (Italian, 1537-1619) was the most influential teacher of anatomy after Vesalius. He was the professor of William Harvey at Padua. Fabricius studied vertebrate physiology and embryology.

[edit] Modern world

• 1543. Andreas Vesalius (Belgian, 1514-1564) wrote De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) with illustrations made from dissections of humans and other animals. This became the standard for human anatomy, replacing Galen and Avicenna.

• 1551-1555. Pierre Belon (French, 1517-1564) wrote L'Histoire Naturalle des Estranges Poissons Marines (1551) and La Nature et Diversité des Poissons (1555). This latter work included 110 animal species and offered many new observations and corrections to Herodotus. L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux avec leurs descriptions et nas portraits (1555) was his picture book, with improved animal classification and accurate anatomical drawings. In this he published a man's and a bird's skeleton side by side to show the resemblance. He discovered an armadillo shell in a market in Syria, showing how Islam was distributing the finds from the New World. (The turkey is so named probably because it got to Europe through Turkey.)

• 1551. Konrad Gesner (Swiss, 1516-1565) wrote Historia animalium (Tiguri, 4 vols., 1551-1558, last volume published in 1587) and gained renown. This work, although uncritically compiled in places, was consulted for over 200 years. He also wrote Icones animalum (1553) and Thierbuch (1563).

• 1554-1555. Guillaume Rondelet (French, 1507-1566) wrote Libri de piscibus marinis (1554) and Universe aquatilium historia (1555). He gathered vernacular names in hope of being able to identify the animal in question. He did go to print with discoveries that disagreed with Aristotle.

• 1564. Gabriel Fallopio (Italian, ?-1564), student of Vesalius and professor of Fabricius, was professor of anatomy at Padua. He discovered the fallopian tube, among other anatomical structures.

• 1574. Johannes Faber (1576-1629), an early entomologist and member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, gave the microscope its name.

• 1577. Mercurialis (Hieronymus) expressed the belief that flies carried the "virus" of plague from the sick or dead to the food of the healthy. He wrote De pestes in universum (1577).

• 1578. Jean de Lery (French, 1534-1611) was a member of the French colony at Rio de Janeiro. He published Voyage en Amerique avec la description des animaux et plantes de ce pays (1578) with observations on the local fauna.

• 1585. Thomas Harriot (English, 1560-1621) was a naturalist with the first attempted English colony in North America, on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. His Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590) describes the black bear, gray squirrel, hare, otter, opossum, raccoon, skunk, Virginia and mule deer, turkeys, horseshoe crab (Limulus), etc.

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• 1587. Gabriel Soares de Souza (Portuguese or Brazilian) stated that flies suck poison from sores on sick people and transmit this poison to skin abrasions of healthy people who become infected. See his Tratado descriptivo do Brasil (1578).

• 1589. José de Acosta (Spanish, 1539-1600) wrote De Natura Novi Orbis Libri duo (1589) and Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (1590), describing many previously unknown animals from the New World.

• 1600. In Italy a spider scare lead to hysteria and the Tarantella dance by which the body cures itself through physical exertions. Whole cities and districts were affected with this craze.

• 1602. Ulysses Aldrovandi (Italian, 1522-1605) wrote De Animalibus Insectis. This and his other works include much nonsense, but he used wing and leg morphology to construct his classification of insects. He is more highly regarded for his ornithological contributions.

• 1604-1614. Francisco Hernández de Toledo (Spanish) was sent to study Mexican biota in 1593-1600, by Philip II of Spain. His notes were published in Mexico in 1604 and 1614, describing many animals for the first time: coyote, buffalo, axolotl, porcupine, pronghorn antelope, horned lizard, bison, peccary and the toucan. He also figured many animals for the first time: ocelot, rattlesnake, manatee, alligator, armadillo, and the pelican.

• 1607 (1612?). Captain John Smith (English), head of the Jamestown colony, wrote A Map of Virginia in which he describes the physical features of the country, its climate, plants and animals, and inhabitants. He describes the raccoon, muskrat, flying squirrel, as well as a score of animals, all well identifiable. (In 1609 the Jamestown, Virginia, colony was almost lost when settlers found that their stores had been devoured by rats from English ships.)

• 1617. Garcilasso de la Vega (Peruvian Spanish, 1539-1617) wrote Royal Commentaries of Peru, containing descriptions of the condor, ocelots, puma, viscacha, tapir, rhea, skunk, llama, huanaco, paca, and vicuna.

• 1620? North American colonists probably introduced the European honeybee, Apis melifera, into Virginia. By the 1640s these insects were also in Massachusetts. They became feral and advanced through eastern North America before the settlers. (The honeybee was introduced into Australia in 1822. From New South Wales, these bees swarmed and spread.)

• 1628. William Harvey (English, 1578-1657) published Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628) with the doctrine of the circulation of blood (an inference made by him in about 1616). Also, he described the development of the chick and some lower animals in his De Generatione animalium (1615) and inferred that mammals are likewise produced from eggs.

• 1634. Thomas Muffet (English) wrote Insectorum sive Minorum Animalium Theatrum.

• 1634. William Wood (English) wrote New England Prospect (1634) in which he describes New England's fauna.

• 1637. René Descartes (French, 1596-1650) took a mechanistic view of living functions. See his Discourse on Method (1637), a small book of essays on philosophy and physiology. His motto: Cognito ergo sum.

• 1637. Thomas Morton (English) wrote New English Canaan (1637) with treatments of 26 species of mammals, 32 birds, 20 fishes and 8 marine invertebrates.

• 1648. Georg Marcgrave (?-1644) was a German astronomer working for Johann Moritz, Count Maurice of Nassau, in the Dutch colony set up in northeastern Brazil. His Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648) contains the best early descriptions of many Brazilian animals. Marcgrave used Tupi names that were later Latinized by Linnaeus in the 13th edition of the Systema Naturae. The biological and linguistic data could have come from Moraes, a Brazilian Jesuit priest turned apostate.

• 1651. William Harvey (English, 1578-1657) published Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (1651) with the aphorism Ex ovo omnia on the title page.

• 1661. Marcello Malpighi (Italian, 1628-1694) discovered capillaries (1661), structures predicted to exist by Harvey some thirty years earlier. Malpighi was the founder of microanatomy. He studied, among other things, the anatomy of the silkworm (1669) and the development of the chick (1672).

• 1662. John Graunt (English) provided the beginnings of demography with his Natural and Political Observations…made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662). His speculations on Adam's and Eve's descendants and their growth rates showed an understanding of geometrical population increase. He found that more males than females were born, a fact considered by Sir Matthew Hale as providential for the "needs of warfare."

• 1665. Robert Hooke (English, 1635-1703) wrote Micrographia (1665, 88 plates), with his early microscopic studies. He coined the term "cell." (This work is on the internet.)

• 1668. Francesco Redi (Italian, 1621-1697) wrote Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degli Insetti (1668) and De animaculis vivis quae in corpribus animalium vivorum reperiuntur (1708). His refutation of spontaneous generation in flies is still considered a model in experimentation.

• 1669. Jan Swammerdam (Dutch, 1637-1680) wrote Historia Insectorum Generalis (1669) describing metamorphosis in insects and supporting the preformation doctrine. He was a pioneer in microscopic studies. He gave the first description of red blood corpuscles and discovered the valves of lymph vessels. His work was unknown and unacknowledged until after his death.

• 1672. John Josselyn (English) wrote New England's Rarities Discovered in Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, and Plants of the Country (1672) and An Account of Two Voyages to New England (2nd. ed., 1675), but few new findings are presented in these works. The public still wanted more animal stories from the colonies.

• 1672. Regnier de Graaf (1641-1673) reported that he had traced the human egg from the ovary down the fallopian tube to the uterus. What he really saw was the follicle.

• 1675-1722. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (Dutch, 1632-1723) wrote Arcana Naturae Detectae Ope Microscopiorum Delphis Batavorum, a treatise with early observations made with microscopes. He discovered blood corpuscles, striated muscles, human spermatozoa (1677), protozoa (1674), bacteria (1683), rotifers, etc.

• 1675. Athanasius Kircher (Jesuit priest, 1602-1680) wrote Arca Noe (1675). Kircher was also an early microscopist.

• 1691. John Ray (English, 1627-1705) wrote Synopsis methodica animalium quadripedum (1693), Historia Insectorum (1710), and The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691). He tried to classify different animal species into groups largely according to their toes and teeth.

• 1699. Edward Tyson (English, 1650-1708) wrote Orang-Outang sive Homo Sylvestris (or Anatomy of a Pygmie Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape and a Man) (1699), his anatomical study of the primate. This was the first detailed and accurate study of the higher apes. Other studies by Tyson include the female porpoise, male rattlesnake, tapeworm, roundworm (Ascaris), peccary and opossum.

• 1700? Discovery of the platypus (Monotrema) in Australia.

• 1700. Félix de Azara (Spanish) estimated the feral herds of cattle on the South American pampas at 48 million animals. These animals probably descended from herds introduced by the Jesuits some 100 years earlier. (North America and Australia were to follow in this pattern, where feral herds of cattle and mustangs would explode, become pests, and reform the frontier areas.)

• 1705. Maria Sybilla Merian (German, 1647-1717) wrote and beautifully illustrated her Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensis (Veranderingen der Surinaamsche Insecten) (1705). In this book she stated that Fulgora lanternaria was luminous.

• 1724. Immanuel Kant (German, 1724-1804) wrote Critique of Pure Reason, a treatise that undoubtedly influenced Johann Wolfgang von Goethein his metaphysical zoology. Kant also gave a description of the "struggle for existence" in 1775.

• 1728-1793. John Hunter (Scottish, 1728-1793) was an early comparative anatomist and founder of the Hunter Museum, later purchased by the British government for the Royal College of Surgeons. (Exhibits and zoological specimens of this collection, once curated by Thomas Huxley, can be seen on the internet.)

• 1729. Johann Beringer (German), professor at the University of Würtzburg, defended the divine origin of fossils, until he discovered yet another remarkable fossil, one that had his name on it. He was hoodwinked by his students into accepting fake fossils with cosmic designs.

• 1730? Sir Hans Sloane (English (born Ireland), 1660-1753) was a founder of the British Museum.

• 1734-1742. René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (French, 1683-1756) was an early entomologist not worried about identifying every bug to cross his path. His Mémoires pour servir… l'histoire des insectes (6 volumes) shows the best of zoological observation at the time. He invented the glass-fronted bee hive.

• 1735-1770. Charles Marie de La Condamine (French) returned to Europe via the Amazon in 1743 after measuring the arc of the meridian in Quito. He arrived in Belém on 19 September 1743, where he determined the true latitude of the city. See his Journal du oyage Fait par Ordre du Roi a l'Equateur (1751). He also had a Spanish version published in Amsterdam, with new data, Viaje a la America Meridional por el Rio de las Amazonas. Estudio sobre la Quina (1745?). Although he introduced rubber to Europeans, his zoological observations did not arouse that public.

• 1740. Abraham Trembley, Swiss naturalist, discovered the hydra which he considered to combine both animal and plant characteristics. His Mémoir pour Servir… l'Histoire d'un Genre de Polypes d'Eau Douce… Bras en Terme de Cornes (1744) showed that freshwater polyps of Hydra could be sectioned or mutilated and still reform. Regeneration soon became a topic of inquiry among Réaumur, Bonnet, Spallanzini and others.

• 1741. José Gumilla (Spanish) published a work on the natural history of the Orinoco River region.

• 1745. Charles Bonnet (French-Swiss, 1720-1793) wrote "Traite d'Insectologie" (1745) and "Contemplation de la nature" (1732). He confirmed parthenogenesis of aphids.

• 1745. Pierre Louis M. de Maupertius (French, 1698-1759) went to Lapland to measure the arc of the meridian (1736-1737). (He fared much better than did Charles Marie de La Condamine, who went to work in Peru.) Maupertuis was a Newtonian. He generated family trees for inheritable characteristics (e.g., hemophilia in European royal families) and showed inheritance through both the male and female lines. He was an early evolutionist and head of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1744 he proposed the theory that molecules from all parts of the body were gathered into the gonads (later called "pangenesis"). "Vénus physique" was published anonymously in 1745. Maupertuis wrote "Essai de cosmologie" in which he suggests a survival of the fittest concept: "Could not one say that since, in the accidental combination of Nature's productions, only those could survive which found themselves provided with certain appropriate relationships, it is no wonder that these relationships are present in all the species that actually exist? These species which we see today are only the smallest part of those which a blind destiny produced." Few people read Maupertuis today, and he is mostly known because Voltaire unjustly made fun of him.

• 1748. John Tuberville Needham, an English naturalist, wrote "Observations upon the Generation, Composition, and Decomposition of Animal and Vegetable Substances" in which he offers "proof" of spontaneous generation. Needham found flasks of broth teeming with "little animals" after having boiled them and sealed them, but his experimental techniques were faulty.

• 1748-1751. Peter Kalm (Swede) was a naturalist and student of Linnaeus. He traveled in North America (1748-1751).

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• 1749-1804. Compte de Buffon (Georges Louis Leclerc) (French, 1707-1788) wrote "Histoire Naturelle" (1749-1804 in 44 vols.) that had a great impact on zoology. He asserted that species were mutable. Buffon also drew attention to vestigial organs. He held that spermatozoa were "living organic molecules" that multiplied in the semen. All in all, Buffon was probably the greatest naturalist since the time of Aristotle until Darwin.

• 1757. Miguel Venegas (Spanish) wrote "Noticia de la California" (1757).

• 1758. Albrecht von Haller (Swiss, 1708-1777) was one of the founders of modern physiology. His work on the nervous system was revolutionary. He championed animal physiology, along with human physiology. See his textbook "Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani" (1758).

• 1758. Karl von Linnaeus (Swedish, 1707-1778) published the "Systema Naturae" whose tenth edition (1758) is the starting point of binomial nomenclature for zoology. He was banned by the Pope for using the sexual parts of plants in his botanical classification, but this probably just increased his readership.

• 1759. Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733-1794) wrote "Theoria Generationis" (1759) that disagreed with the whole idea of preformation. He supported the doctrine of epigenesis. This youthful follower of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Liebnitz (1646-1716) almost took on Albrecht von Haller (also a vitalist) as an adversary. Wolff sought to resolve the problem of hybrids (mule, hinny, apemen) in his epigenesis, since these could not be well explained by preformation.

• 1768. Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) and Daniel Solander (1733-1782) sailed with Captain James Cook (English, 1728-1779) on the H.M.S. Endeavor for the South Seas (Tahiti), until 1771.

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• 1769. Edward Bancroft (English) wrote "An Essay on the Natural History of Guyana in South America" (1769) and advanced the theory that flies transmit disease.

• 1771. Johann Reinhold Forster (German, 1729-1798) was the naturalist on Cook's second voyage around the world (1772-1775). He published a "Catalogue of the Animals of North America" (1771) as an addendum to Kalm's "Travels." He also studied the birds of Hudson Bay.

• 1774. Gilbert White (English) wrote "The natural history and antiquities of Selborne, in the county of Southampton" (1774) with fine ornithological observations on migration, territoriality and flocking.

• 1774. Oliver Goldsmith (English) wrote "An history of the Earth and animated matter" (1774) that has a few gems among the trash. "She stoops to conquer" is far better reading.

• 1775. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739-1819) wrote "Die Säugethiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen" (1775). (This book is in the Emilio Goeldi Museum's rare book collection in Belém, Brazil.)

• 1775. Johann Christian Fabricius (Danish, 1745-1808) wrote "Systema Entomologiae" (1775), "Genera Insectorum" (1776), "Philosophia Entomologica" (1778), "Entomologia Systematica" (1792-1794, in six vols.), and later publications (to 1805), to make Fabricius one of the world's greatest entomologists.

• 1776. René Dutrochet (French, 1776-1832) proposed an early version of the cell theory.

• 1778. Franz Anton Mesmer (Austrian, 1734-1815) made it big with high society in Paris, introduced mesmerism or "animal magnetism," as a health craze in Europe (1780-1790).

• 1778. J.C. Fabricius (Danish, 1745-1808) put systematic entomology on firm basis, starting with his "Philosophia Entomlogica" (1778).

• 1780. Lazaro Spallanzani (Italian, 1729-1799) performed artificial fertilization in the frog, silkmoth and dog. He concluded from filtration experiments that spermatozoa were necessary for fertilization. In 1783 he showed that human digestion was a chemical process since gastric juices in and outside the body liquefied food (meat). He used himself as the experimental animal. His work to disprove spontaneous generation in microbes was resisted by John Needham (English priest, 1713-1781).

• 1780. Antoine Lavoisier (French, 1743-1794) and Pierre Laplace (French, 1749-1827) wrote "Memoir on heat." Animal respiration was a form of combustion, a conclusion reached by this discoverer of Oxygen.

• 1783. Johann Hermann wrote "Tabula affinitatum animalium," etc.

• 1783-1792. Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira (Brazilian) undertook biological exploration. He wrote "Viagem Filosófica pelas Captanias do Grão-Pará, Rio Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabá". His specimens were taken by Saint-Hilaire from Lisbon to the Paris Museum during the Napoleanic invasion of Portugal. He is considered the "Brazilian Humboldt."

• 1784. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German) wrote "Erster Entwurk einer Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie" (1795) that promoted the idea of archetypes to which animals should be compared. Vitalist and romantic, his zoology mostly follows Lorenz Oken. Goethe was wrong about the vertebrate skull being an expansion of vertebrae, but it was a good try.

• 1784. Thomas Jefferson (American) wrote "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1784) that refuted some of Buffon's mistakes about the New World fauna. As U.S. President, he dispatched the Lewis and Clark expedition to the American West (1804).

• 1788-1789. Comte de Lacépède (Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville-sur-Illon Lacépède) (French) wrote "Histoire Naturalle des Quadrupèdes ovipares et des Serpens" (1788-1798). This book was a great success with the public because of its anecdotal style, but it should be rejected for eccentric nomenclature. (See also his "Histoire Naturalle des Poissons" (1798), a copy of which is in the [[Emilio Goeldi Museum 's rare book collection.)

• 1789? Guillaume Antoine Olivier (French, 1756-1814) wrote "Entomologie," or "Histoire Naturalle des Insectes" (1789). (There is a copy in the Emilio Goeldi Museum's rare book collection.)

• 1789. George Shaw & Frederick Polydore Nodder published "The Naturalist's Miscellany: or coloured figures of natural objects drawn and described immediately from nature" (1789-1813) in 24 volumes with hundreds of color plates.

• 1791. Petrus Camper (Dutch anatomist and painter, 1722-?) wrote "Physical dissertation on the real differences that men of different countries and ages display" (1791) in which he defined the facial angle (for artistic purposes) and inadvertently began the "scientific" racism of skull measurers. He also studied hearing in fishes, the hollow bones of birds, and the skeleton of the orangutan. All in all, he was highly original in his interests and approaches.

• 1792. François Huber made original observations on honeybees. In his "Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles" (1792) he noted that the first eggs laid by queen bees develop into drones if her nuptial flight had been delayed and that her last eggs would also give rise to drones. He also noted that rare worker eggs develop into drones. This anticipated by over 50 years the discovery by Johann Dzieron that drones come from unfertilized eggs and queen and worker bees come from fertilized eggs.

• 1793. Lazaro Spallanzani (Italian, 1729-1799) conducted experiments on the orientation of bats and owls in the dark. These are well summarized in Donald R. Griffin's "Listening in the Dark: The acoustic orientation of bats and men" (Yale University Press, 1958)

• 1793. Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750-1816) wrote "Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen" (1793) that was a major work on insect pollination of flowers, previously discovered in 1721 by Philip Miller (1694-1771), the head gardener at Chelsea and author of the famous "Gardener's Dictionary" (1731-1804).

• 1794. Erasmus Darwin (English, grandfather of Charles Darwin) wrote "Zoönomia, or the Laws of Organic Life" (1794) in which he advanced the idea that environmental influences could transform species. Darwin, in his "Autobiography," did not think his grandfather's ideas had much of an effect on him, but that is open to debate.

• 1795. James Hutton (English) wrote "Theory of the Earth" (1795) in which he interpreted certain geological strata as former sea beds.

• 1796 - 1829. Pierre André Latreille (French, 1762-1833) sought to provide a "natural" system for the classification of animals, in his many monographs on invertebrates. "Insectes de l'Amerique Equinoxiale" (1811) was devoted to insects collected by Humboldt and [[Bonpland. See also C.S. Sonnini and P.A. Latreille "Histoire naturalle des Reptiles" (4 vols., 1801).

• 1798. Edward Jenner (English, 1749-1823) promoted vaccination with cow pox as a preventative against smallpox.

• 1798. Thomas Robert Malthus (English, 1766-1834) wrote "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798), a book that was important to both Darwin and Wallace.

• 1799. George Shaw (English), not the playwright, provided the first description of the duck-billed platypus. Everard Home (1802) provided the first complete description. See Shaw's "General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History" (1799-1802?).

• 1799-1803. Alexander von Humboldt (German, 1769-1859) and Jacques Goujaud Aim Bonpland (French) arrived in Venezuela in 1799. Humboldt's "Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America during the years 1799-1803" and "Kosmos" were very influential in his time and since.

• 1799. Baron Georges C.L.D. Cuvier (French, 1769-1832) established comparative anatomy as a field of study. He also founded the science of paleontology. He wrote "Leçons d'Anatomie Comparée" (1801-1805), "Le Règne Animal distribué d'après son organisation" (1816), "Ossemens Fossiles" (1812-1813). He believed in the fixity of species and the Biblical Flood. His early "Tableau élémentaire de l'histoire naturalle des animaux" (1798) was influential, but it did not include Cuvier's major contributions to animal classification.

• 1799. American hunters killed the last bison in the American East, in Pennsylvania.

[edit] Nineteenth century

• 1802. Chevalier de Lamark (Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet) (French, 1744-1829) wrote "Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corpos Vivants" and "Philosophie zoologique" (1809). He was an early evolutionist and organized invertebrate paleontology. While Lamarck's contributions to science include work in meteorology, botany, chemistry, geology, and paleontology, he is best known for his work in invertebrate zoology and his theoretical work on evolution. He published an impressive seven-volume work, "Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres" (Natural History of Animals without Backbones, 1815-1822). Lamarck today is simply Darwin's foil among folks too lazy to read what he had to say.

• 1804. Matthias Jakob Schleiden (German, 1804-1881) stated a cell theory for plants.

• 1805. Lorenz Oken (German, later Swiss, 1779-1851) wrote "Die Zeugung" (1805) in which he revealed himself to be both vitalist and romantic. ("Life issued from the sea.") He was closely associated with Goethe. His "Lehbuch der Naturgeschichte" was rejected for its non-standard nomenclature (Opinion 417 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature).

• 1807. William Hyde Wollaston, mineralogist, invented the camera lucida.

• 1813-18. William Charles Wells (Scottish-American, 1757-1817) was the first to recognise the principle of natural selection. He read a paper to the Royal Society in 1813 (but not published until 1818) which used the idea to explain differences between human races. The application was limited to the question of how different skin colours arose.

• 1815. William Kirby and William Spence (English) wrote "An Introduction to Entomology" (first edition in 1815). This was the first modern entomology text.

• 1817. Georges Cuvier wrote "Le Règne Animal" (Paris).

• 1817-1820. Johann Baptist von Spix (German, 1781-1826) and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (German) conducted Brazilian zoological and botanical explorations (1817-1820). See their "Reise in Brasilien auf Befehl Sr. Majestät Maximilian Joseph I König von Bayern in den Jahren 1817 bis 1820 gemacht und beschrieben." (3 vols., 1823-1831).

• 1817. Johann Natterer (Austrian, 1787-1843) undertook Brazilian zoological explorations (1817-1835).

• 1817. William Smith, in his "Strategraphical System of Organized Fossils" (1817) showed that certain strata have characteristic series of fossils.

• 1817. Thomas Say (American, 1787-1834) was a brilliant young systematic zoologist until he moved to the utopian community at New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825. Luckily, most of his insect collections have been recovered.

• William Lawrence (English, 1783-1867) published a book of his lectures to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1919. The book contains 1. a remarkably clear rejection of Lamarkism (soft inheritance), 2. proto-evolutionary ideas about the origin of mankind, and 3. a forthright denial of the 'Jewish scriptures' (= Old Testament). He was forced to suppress the book after the Lord Chancellor refused copyright and other powerful men made threatening remarks. His subsequent life was highly successful.

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• 1820. Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied wrote "Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815-1817" (2 vols., 1820, 1821) with the results of his work in eastern South America. Ninety plates (Abbildungen) were published in 1822-1831.

• 1822. Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent "Dictionnaire classique d'Histoire Naturelle" (17 vols., 1822-1831).

• 1822. Martin Lichtenstein wrote "Die erke von Marcgrave und Piso Über die Naturgeschichte Brasiliens erläutert aus den wieder aufgefundenen Original-Abbildungen" (1822).

• 1824. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is founded at London.

• 1825. Gideon Mantell (English) wrote "Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex" (Phil. Trans. Roy, Soc. Lond., 115: 179-186) is the first paper on dinosaurs. The name dinosaur was coined by anatomist Richard Owen.

• 1826. The Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park is founded by the Zoological Society of London with help from Sir Thomas Raffles. It opened its "zoo" to the public for two days a week beginning April 27, 1828, with the first hippopotamus to be seen in Europe since the ancient Romans showed one at the Coliseum. The Society will help save bird and animal species from extinction.

• 1826-1839. John James Audubon (Haitian-born American, 1785-1851) wrote "Birds of America" (1826-1839), with North American bird portraits and studies. See also his posthumously published volume on North American. Quadrupeds, written with his sons and the naturalist John Bachman, "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America" (1845-1854) with 150 folio plates.

• 1827. Karl Ernst von Baer (Russian embryologist, 1792-1876) was the founder of comparative embryology. He demonstrated the existence of the mammalian ovum, and he proposed the germ-layer theory. His major works include "De ovi mammalium et hominis genesi" (1827) and "Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Tiere" (1828; 1837).

• 1829. James Smithson (English, 1765-1829) donated seed money in his will for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

• 1830-1833. Sir Charles Lyell (English, 1797-1875) wrote "Principles of Geology" and gave the time needed for evolution to work its wonders. Darwin took this book to sea on the Beagle. Past environments were probably much more perturbed than Lyell admitted.

• 1830. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (French, 1772-1844) wrote "Principes de philosophie zoologique" (1830).

• 1831-1836. Charles Robert Darwin (English, 1809-1882) and Captain Robert FitzRoy (English) went to sea as the original odd couple. The official publication was the "Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle." See Darwin's "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by the H.M.S. Beagle under the command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., from 1832 to 1836" (1839).

• 1832. Thomas Nuttall (American?, 1786-1859) wrote "A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada" (1832) that was to become the standard text on the subject for most of the 19th century.

• 1834. T. Hawkins (English) wrote "Memoirs of Ichthyosarri and Plesiosauri, Extinct Monsters of Ancient Earth" (1834) and "The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosarri and Plesiosauri, Gedolim Taninim of Moses" (1840).

• 1834. André Marie Constant Duméril, Auguste Dumériland Gabriel Bibron (French) wrote "Erpétologie gérérale ou Histoire Naturalle Compète de Reptiles" (9 vols., atlas, 1834-1854).

• 1835. William Swainson (English, 1789-1855) wrote A Treatise on the Geography and Classification of Animals (1835) in which he used ad hoc land bridges to explain animal distributions. He included some interesting, second-hand observations on Old World army ants.

• 1836. William Buckland (English, 1784-1856) wrote "Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to natural Theology" (1836) in which he stated that there were several creations.

• 1839. Theodor Schwann (German, 1810-1882) wrote "Mikroskopischen Untersuchungen über die Übereinstimmungen in der Strucktur und dem Wachstum der Thiere nd Pflanzen" (1839). With him the cell theory was made general.

• 1839. Jean Louis Rudolph Agassiz (Swiss-American, 1807-1873) arrived in the U.S. A former student of Cuvier, Louis Agassiz was an expert on fossil fishes. He founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Harvard University, and became Darwin's North American opposition. He was a popularizer of natural history and exhorted students to "study nature, not books." His "Nomenclator Zoologicus" (1842-1847) was a pioneering effort, but in it Agassiz unfortunately emends many names he thought to be incorrectly derived. See his "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States" (1862).

• 1840. Charles Darwin wrote the "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle" in which no evolutionary idea is put forward.

• 1840. Jan Evangelista Purkyně, a Czech physiologist, at Breslau proposes that the word "protoplasm" be applied to the formative material of young animal embryos.

• 1842. Charles Darwin (English) wrote "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs" (1842). Again, no evolutionary theory was advanced in this work.

• 1842. Baron Justus von Liebig wrote "Die Thierchemie" in which he applied classic methodology to studying animal tissues, suggested that animal heat is produced by combustion, and founded the science of biochemistry.

• 1843. John James Audubon, age 58, ascended the Missouri River to Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone to sketch wild animals.

• 1844. Robert Chambers (Scottish, 1802-1871) wrote "The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" (1844) in which he included early evolutionary considerations. The most primitive species originated by spontaneous generation, but these gave rise to more advanced ones. This book, anonymously published, had a profound effect on Wallace. Evolution "was the manner in which the Divine Author has been pleased to work."

• 1845. von Siebold Protozoa recognized as single-celled animals.

• 1848. Josiah C. Nott (American), a physician from New Orleans, published his belief that mosquitoes transmitted malaria.

• 1848. Alfred Russel Wallace (English, 1823-1913) and Henry W. Bates (English, 1825-1892) arrived in the Amazon River valley in 1848. Bates stayed until 1859, exploring the upper Amazon. Wallace remained in the Amazon until 1852, exploring the Rio Negro. Wallace wrote "A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro" (1853), and Bates wrote "The Naturalist on the River Amazons" (1863). Later (1854-1862), Wallace went to the Far East, reported in his "The Malay Archipelago" (1869).

• 1848. Richard Moritz Schomburgk (German) wrote "Versuch einer Zusammenstellung der Flora und Fauna von Britisch-Guiana" (1848).

• 1849. Arnold Adolph Berthold demonstrated by castration and testicular transplant that the testis produces a blood-borne substance promoting male secondary sexual characteristics.

• 1850? Thomas Hardwicke (British naturalist) discovered the lesser panda (Ailurus fulgens) in northern India.

• 1850? Bram Stoker (English), author of "Dracula" maligned vampire bats.

• 1851. Herman Melville (American author) wrote "Moby Dick," possibly the greatest novel in all American literature, that is only superficially about whaling but which nonetheless provides valuable information about how whales were hunted and used.

• 1854. Henry David Thoreau (American) published "Walden" (1854).

• 1855. Alfred Russel Wallace (English, 1823-1913) wrote "On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species" (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1855) with evolutionary ideas that drew upon Wallace's experiences in the Amazon.

• 1856. Lord Kelvin (English) estimated the age of the solar system given as 25 million years, later changed to 40 million.

• 1857. Discovery of Neanderthal skull-cap: the first fossil of a pre-sapiens hominin.

• 1857-1881. Henri Milne-Edwards (French, 1800-1885) introduced the idea of physiologic division of labor and wrote a treatise on comparative anatomy and physiology (1857-1881).

[edit] References

[edit] External Links

• Mc-Graw Hill