Alexei Nikolaevich Severtsov (russian: Алексей Николаевич Северцов; 11 September 1866 – 16 December 1936) was a Russian and Soviet evolutionary zoologist who worked on comparative anatomy and morphology. He was the son of the zoologist

Nikolai Severtzov Nikolai Alekseevich Severtzov (5 November 1827 – 8 February 1885) was a Russian explorer and naturalist. Severtzov studied at the Moscow University and at the age of eighteen he came into contact with G. S. Karelin and took an interest i ...

. He studied the evolution of vertebrates and established an institute for evolutionary morphology which is now named after him as the AN Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution. He introduced various concepts of phyloembryology and evolutionary physiology. Stamp_of_USSR_1640g

Severtsov was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

where his father was the zoologist,

. After private schooling in Petrov,

Bobrovsky Uyezd Bobrovsky Uyezd (''Бобровский уезд'') was one of the subdivisions of the Voronezh Governorate of the Russian Empire. It was situated in the northeastern part of the governorate. Its administrative centre was Bobrov. Demographics At ...

in the

Voronezh Governorate Voronezh Governorate (russian: Воронежская губерния, ''Voronezhskaya guberniya''; uk, Воронізька губернія) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, and th ...

, he went to the

Lomonosov University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1885 and graduated in 1895. Influential teachers included P.P. Sushkin, M. A. Menzbir, I. M. Sechenov, K. A. Timiryazev, and V. V. Markovnikov. He then worked at marine biology laboratories in Villefranche-sur-Mer, Naples, and Germany. He received a doctorate in 1898 for research on the metameres of the head of the torpedo ray and went to teach zoology from at the

University of Dorpat The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

(Tartu) and from 1902 at Kiev and then from 1911 at Moscow. For his work on the evolution of the lower vertebrates he received the

Karl Baer Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer Edler von Huthorn ( – ) was a Baltic German scientist and explorer. Baer was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, and is considered a, or the, founding father of embryology. He was a m ...

Prize of 1919. He studied the origin of the maxillary apparatus and the breathing organs of fish. In 1930 he established a laboratory for evolutionary anatomy and morphology. Severtsov followed on the theme of organ function change begun by

St. George Mivart St. George Jackson Mivart (30 November 1827 – 1 April 1900) was an English biologist. He is famous for starting as an ardent believer in natural selection who later became one of its fiercest critics. Mivart attempted to reconcile D ...

and

Anton Dohrn Felix Anton Dohrn FRS FRSE (29 December 1840 – 26 September 1909) was a prominent German Darwinist and the founder and first director of the first zoological research station in the world, the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Italy. He worked ...

. One of his students was

Ivan Schmalhausen Ivan Ivanovich Schmalhausen (russian: Ива́н Ива́нович Шмальга́узен; April 23, 1884 – October 7, 1963) was a Ukrainian, Russian and later Soviet zoologist and evolutionary biologist of German descent. He developed the th ...

. Severtsov developed the biogenetic law or recapitulation theory of

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new sp ...

under the term that he coined, phyloembryologenesis, and attempted to explain evolution through morphological and developmental changes. He explained this in a book in German ''Morphologische Gesetzmäßigkeiten der Evolution'' published in 1931.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Severtsov, Alexei 1886 births 1936 deaths Russian anatomists Russian zoologists Moscow State University alumni Scientists from Moscow Anatomists from the Soviet Union Soviet zoologists