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2 unusual facts about Cuvier's beaked whale


Cuvier's beaked whale

It had been obtained by M. Raymond Gorsse in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, near Fos, in 1804 from a peasant who had found it on the seashore the previous year.

It wasn't until 1850 that zoologists realized the extant nature of the species, when Paul Gervais compared the type specimen to another that had stranded at Aresquiès, Hérault, in May of the same year, and found the two to be identical.


African elephant

Although it is commonly believed that the genus was named by Georges Cuvier in 1825, Cuvier spelled it "Loxodonte".

Alexandre Brongniart

Rudwick, Martin J.S., Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes (The University of Chicago Press, 1997) ISBN 0-226-73106-5

Blainville's beaked whale

The second specimen, a complete skull sent from the Seychelles by a M. Leduc in 1839, was named Ziphius seychellensis by the English zoologist John Edward Gray in 1846; the French scientist Paul Gervais later placed this specimen in the genus Dioplodon ("two-toothed").

Catastrophism

Lyell presented his ideas in the influential three volume work, Principles of Geology, published in the 1830s, which challenged theories about geological cataclysms proposed by proponents of catastrophism like Cuvier and Buckland.

Cuvier's dwarf caiman

This may be because the ventral skin in this species is too heavily armoured to make it easy to tan.

Giuseppe De Cristoforis

1832 with G Jan and Georges Cuvier, baron Il regno animale distribuito secondo la sua organizzazione opera del Baron Cuvier ; compendiata e recata in lingua italiana per servir di base alla Storia naturale degli animali e d'introduzione al prodromo della Fauna dell'Italia superiore, compreso nei cataloghi sistematici e descrittivi della raccolte zoologiche. Parte IIa., I molluschi Parma : Stamperia Carmignani, 1832.

Johann Jakob Heckel

Fish were his specialty and he worked with many of the greatest ichthyologists of his time including Cuvier, Valenciennes, Bonaparte, Müller, and Troschel.

Men, Microscopes, and Living Things

Shippen traces the history of biological thought beginning with Aristotle and followed by Pliny, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, and several others.

P. senegalus

Polypterus senegalus, the gray bichir, Senegal bichir, Cuvier's bichir or dinosaur eel, a freshwater ray-finned fish species

Pachydermata

Cuvier himself defined Pachydermata as "animals with hoofs, nonruminants", whereas Storr had described it as "mammals with hoofs with more than two toes".

Platax

In a joint effort with Valenciennes, Cuvier published a natural history work in 1831 where the freshwater angelfish was classified as Platax scalaris.

Shepherd's beaked whale

There have been five unconfirmed sightings (mostly from New Zealand), as well as a "probable" sighting near Shag Rocks and four confirmed sightings—the first two confirmed sightings occurred in 1985, within a few minutes of each other, off the Tristan da Cunha group (first sighting at 37°18'S, 12°32'W); the third in 2002 near Gough Island (40°19'S, 9°53'W); and the fourth in 2004 south of Tasmania (48°50'S, 150°06'E).

Simon Charles Miger

Simon Charles Miger (Nemours, 19 February 1736 - Paris, 28 February 1828) was a French engraver, most notable for the plates he produced for La Ménagerie du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle by Lacépède, Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier.

White-throated Toucan

It was formerly considered to be two species, with the southern and western nominate subspecies, R. t. tucanus, named the Red-billed Toucan, and the northern and eastern subspecies, R. t. cuvieri, Cuvier's Toucan (when considered a species; R. cuvieri, Wagler, 1827).


see also