The French zoologist and biologist Baron Georges Léopold Cuvier (1769-1832) made significant contributions in the fields of paleontology, comparative anatomy, and taxonomy and was one of the chief spokesmen for science in postrevolutionary France.

Georges Léopold Cuvier was born on Aug. 23, 1769, in Montbéliard, a small, French-speaking town in the duchy of Württemberg, where his father was commandant of the local artillery. Cuvier was christened Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, but after the death of his elder brother, Georges, in 1769, he was known as Georges. His parents hoped that he would keep up the family tradition of one son from each generation training for the Lutheran ministry, but instead Cuvier attended the Académie Caroline in Stuttgart (1784-1788), studying commerce and economics, police and public administration, law, and chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology. He was...