While he is highly regarded as a philosopher and father of logic and reasoning, Aristotle is also known for accomplishments in and contributions to other sciences. Throughout his life, he wrote several biological works which laid the foundations for comparative anatomy, taxonomy (classification), and embryology.

Aristotle was born in the northern Greek village of Stagira. His father was the court physician to the king of Macedonia, and it was at the Macedonian court where Aristotle spent much of his early boyhood. His father died before Aristotle was ten years old and the boy was raised by friends of the family.

At age seventeen, Aristotle was sent to the Academy of Plato in Athens where he plunged wholeheartedly into Plato's pursuit of truth and goodness, and soon became Plato's best pupil, earning the nickname "intelligence of the school." In the year 347 BC, twenty years after Aristotle's arrival, Plato died...