The English zoologist Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892) was one of the greatest comparative anatomists of the 19th century.

Richard Owen was born on July 20, 1804, in Lancaster, where he was apprenticed to a local surgeon in 1820. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1824, completing his medical studies at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. His interest in anatomy led to his appointment in 1827 as assistant curator of the Hunterian Collection of the College of Surgeons in London. In 1831 he went to Paris to attend the lectures of Baron Cuvier, regarded as the world's foremost authority on comparative anatomy. Owen's 1832 "Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus" established his reputation as an anatomist and was largely responsible for his election as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1834. Owen remained at the College of Surgeons until 1856, being appointed Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology in 1836.

Owen cataloged and classified the specimens...