Born This Day: Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, Early Evolutionary Theorist

Treviranus (Feb. 4, 1776 - Feb. 16, 1837) was a German naturalist who

made histological and anatomical studies on invertebrates. Preceding Darwin, he believed in the “descent by modification,” of species.

He produced six volumes of his Biologie; oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur between 1802 and 1822. Therein, he held that simple forms (Protists), which he termed zoophytes, were “the primitive types from which all the organisms of the higher classes had arisen by gradual development.” He was among the first to regard the cell as the structural unit of life forms. link image