Georges-Frédéric Cuvier (; 28 June 1773 – 24 July 1838) was a French

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. He was the younger brother of noted

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and zoologist

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...

Career

Frederic was the head keeper of the

menagerie A menagerie is a collection of captive animals, frequently exotic, kept for display; or the place where such a collection is kept, a precursor to the modern zoo or zoological garden. The term was first used in 17th-century France, referring to ...

at the

Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

from 1804 to 1838. He named the

red panda The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzz ...

(''Ailurus fulgens'') in 1825. The chair of comparative physiology was created for him at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in 1837. He was elected as a foreign member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1835. He is mentioned in

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

's ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...

'' (Chapter VII) as having worked on animal behaviour and instinct, especially the distinction between habit and instinct. He is also mentioned in Herman Melville's ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...

'' (Chapter 32) as having written on the topic of

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

Evolution

Cuvier has been described as the first scientist to use terms ''"héréditaire"'' (hereditary) in 1807 and "

heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic infor ...

" in 1812 in their now biological context. He used both words in promoting the

inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

based on his studies of animal behaviour.Burkhardt, R. W. (2011). ''Lamarck, Cuvier, and Darwin on Animal Behavior''. In Snait B. Gissis, Eva Jablonka. ''Transformations of Lamarckism: From Subtle Fluids to Molecular Biology''. MIT Press. pp. 33-44. Although an advocate of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, similar to his brother he denied the

transmutation of species The Transmutation of species and transformism are 18th and early 19th-century ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a ter ...

.Richards, Robert J. (1987). ''Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior''. University of Chicago Press. pp. 65-70. He believed that behavioral patterns in animals change over time in relation to environmentally induced needs. Historian Robert J. Richards has written that Cuvier "did not believe that the anatomical patterns of species were modified over time (though he did admit they changed in nonessential ways through the inheritance of acquired characteristics... He was a behavioral evolutionist, if a modest one."

List of selected publications

;Books * ''Histoire naturelle des mammifères'' (4 vols., 1819–1842) (with

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (; 15 April 177219 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theorie ...

) * ''De l’histoire naturelle des cétacés.'' Roret, Paris 1836 * * ''Observations préliminaires'', pp. i–xxiv in ''Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles'', by G. Cuvier, ed. 4, vol. 1. E. d’Ocagne, Paris, 1834. ;Papers *Cuvier, F. (1808). ''Observations sur le chien des habitans de la Nouvelle-Hollande, précédés de quelques réflexions sur les facultés morales des animaux''. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. 11: 458–476. *Cuvier, F. (1812). ''Essais sur les facultés intellectuelles des brutes''. Nouv. Bull. Sci. Soc. Philomat. 3: 217–218

Career

Evolution

List of selected publications

References

Further reading