Cuvier

Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist whose work established comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology as scientific disciplines. Born in Montbéliard, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, he studied medicine in Strasbourg and later moved to Paris, where he joined the newly formed Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. He became a leading figure in French science, serving as a professor of anatomy and eventually director of the museum's department of zoology.

Cuvier proposed that knowledge of living animals through comparative anatomy could illuminate the biology of long-extinct forms. He developed a rigorous method of analyzing organismal structure and used fossil skeletons to reconstruct the appearance and function of extinct species, including mammoths and other megafauna. This work contributed to the emergence of vertebrate paleontology and demonstrated the reality of extinction, a controversial idea at the time.

In his theoretical approach, Cuvier emphasized the correlation of parts: the idea that anatomical features are interdependent and that the loss or modification of one part requires compensatory changes in others. He also argued for catastrophism, the view that Earth's history has been shaped by sudden, violent events that caused mass die-offs followed by repopulation, rather than by slow, progressive transformation. Key publications include Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles (1796) and Le Règne Animal (1817; with later supplements). Cuvier's work influenced 19th-century zoology, anatomy, and paleontology, shaping debates on species, variation, and the history of life.