Karl Ernst von Baer

Karl Ernst von Baer (1792 to 1876) was a Baltic German naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist and geographer, born on an estate in the Governorate of Estonia and regarded as a founding father of embryology. He studied at Dorpat, then in Berlin, Vienna and Würzburg, and became professor of zoology and later of anatomy at Königsberg before moving to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1834. His 1828 work on the development of animals described the germ layers, he discovered the notochord and the blastula stage, and in 1826 he discovered the mammalian ovum. He formulated what became known as Baer's laws of embryology. He also led research on Novaya Zemlya, promoted the scientific study of permafrost in Siberia, and co-founded the Russian Geographical Society. Although he accepted the transmutation of species, he rejected Charles Darwin's natural selection late in life.