Alexei Nikolaevich Severtsov (; 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 Alekseyevich Severtsov (; 5 November 1827 – 7 February 1885) was a Russian explorer and naturalist. He was among the early promoters of Darwinian ideas in Russia. Life and work Severtsov was born in Khvoshchevatovo, Zemlyansky dis ...

. 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.

Biography

Severtsov was born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

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 A ...

in the

Voronezh Governorate Voronezh Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, and the Russian SFSR, which existed from 1708 (as ''Azov Governorate'') to 1779 and again from 1796 to 1928. Its capital wa ...

, he went to the

Lomonosov University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

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. Menzbir advised that he learns drawing and he then took lessons from the famous artist N. A. Martynov. Severtsov used his artistic skill not only to make scientific illustrations but for artistic works as well including illustrations for scenes from Goethe's ''

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

'' and for his own fairy tales. 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; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

(Tartu) and from 1902 at Kiev and then from 1911 at Moscow. His master's thesis was on the development of the occipital region of lower vertebrates. 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 me ...

Prize of 1919. He studied the origin of the maxillary apparatus and the breathing organs of fish. He suggested that the five fingered tetrapod limb evolved from 7-10-ray limb of ancestors that included multi-ray fins of fish-like forms. 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 and later becoming one of its fiercest critics. Mivart attempted to reconcile the theor ...

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 marine-biological and zoological research station in the world, the Stazione Zoologica in Nap ...

. One of his students was

Ivan Schmalhausen Ivan Ivanovich Schmalhausen (; 23 April 1884 – 7 October 1963) was a Ukrainian and later Soviet zoologist and evolutionary biologist of German descent. He developed the theory of stabilizing selection, and took part in the development of the mo ...

. 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, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...

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. His son Sergei Alekseevich Severtsov (1891-1947) became an ecologist.

References

External links

Severtsov's art work
{{DEFAULTSORT:Severtsov, Alexei 1886 births 1936 deaths Russian anatomists 20th-century Russian zoologists Moscow State University alumni Scientists from Moscow Soviet anatomists Soviet zoologists