1839-1888

Russian Explorer, Geographer and Zoologist

In the late nineteenth century central and eastern Asia remained a mystery to most of the world beyond the region's inhabitants. Russia, partly because of it's geographic proximity but largely because of it's desire to expand its rule, dispatched Nikolay Przhevalsky on four separate expeditions through east-central Asia. During these trips, Przhevalsky collected thousands of plant and animal specimens, mapped unrecorded stretches of land, rivers, and lakes, and recorded and named previously unseen plants and animals. Of these rare finds, Przhevalsky is best known for discovering the wild camel and the Equus przhevalskii, a stocky, resilient horse he found in Mongolia.

Born in a well-to-do family of Russian and Polish descent, Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky grew up in the Siberian wilderness, where he learned to hunt in thick forests filled with wild boar and black bear. Even though he...