Daniel Frederik Eschricht (18 March 1798 – 22 February 1863) was a Danish zoologist, physiologist, and anatomist known as an authority on whales. He was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

, and studied medicine at

Frederiks Hospital The royal Frederiks Hospital was Denmark's first hospital in the present-day meaning of the word. It was founded by king Frederik V and financed by the earnings from the Norwegian Postal Service. The buildings, situated in Bredgade in Copenh ...

, graduating in 1822. He was a student of

François Magendie __NOTOC__ François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a ''Magendie sign'', a downward an ...

in Paris from 1824-1825, composing a thesis on

cranial nerves Cranial nerves are the nerves that emerge directly from the brain (including the brainstem), of which there are conventionally considered twelve pairs. Cranial nerves relay information between the brain and parts of the body, primarily to and f ...

, after which he studied with prominent European naturalists and anatomists, including

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

. He joined the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

in 1829, becoming Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in 1836. The gray whale genus ''

Eschrichtius ''Eschrichtius'' is a genus of baleen whale containing two species: the gray whale The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray wha ...

'' was named for him a year after his death. In 1861, Eschricht dissected an orca and found thirteen common porpoises and fourteen seals inside.

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

referred to the incident in the Sargasso chapter of

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre- ...

. He was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1863.

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* * 1798 births 1863 deaths 19th-century Danish zoologists Scientists from Copenhagen University of Copenhagen faculty Cetologists {{Zoologist-stub