Ichthyologists

Remembered as the first president of the Leland Stanford Junior University, now known as Stanford University, David Starr Jordan was a reputed ichthyologist. An anti-war activist, too, who opposed America’s participation in World War I, he spent his later years as the chief director of the World Peace Foundation.

Johannes Peter Müller was a German physiologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and comparative anatomist. Known for his discoveries and his capability to synthesize knowledge, Müller made important contributions to the field of physiology. He also mentored physiologists and scientists like Hermann von Helmholtz, Theodor Schwann, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, Ernst Haeckel, and Ernst Wilhelm Brücke.

American naturalist, ornithologist, and vertebrate zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird was an expert on North American birds and mammals. Initially a professor of natural history, he was later associated with the Smithsonian Institution as a curator and assistant secretary. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the US Commission of Fish and Fisheries.

Russian geographer and zoologist Lev Berg served the Soviet Geographical Society as its president and laid down his own theory of evolution, nomogenesis, as an alternative to Darwin’s theory. Remembered for his pioneering research on limnology and ichthyology, he also contributed to the domain of zoogeography.