1744-1829

French naturalist remembered for developing one of the first comprehensive theories of evolution—bodies developed in various ways to cope with environmental pressures, and such changes could be inherited. Regarded as naive, his theory was rejected. First to distinguish vertebrates from invertebrates by their bony spinal column, Lamarck established invertebrate zoology. In his seven-volume Natural History of Invertebrates (1815-22) he differentiated eight-legged arachnids from six-legged insects and categorized crustaceans and echinoderms (starfish, seaurchins, etc.).