Pallas, Peter Simon (1741-1811)

German naturalist who classified corals and sponges and whose work in comparative anatomy, including Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica, established him as a predecessor of Georges Cuvier.

Pallas was born in Berlin. His father was the professor of the Berlin Medical-Surgical Academy, where Pallas studied medicine 1745-59. He also studied at the universities in Halle, Leiden, and Göttingen. A contemporary of Georges Buffon and Linnaeus, he obtained his doctorate from Leiden University with a thesis that refuted Linnaeus's classification of worms. His E. lenchus zoophytorum 1766 was a classification of corals and sponges. From 1761-66, he continued with this research in Holland and England. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 1763. In 1767, he went to St Petersburg Academy of Sciences and conducted several Russian expeditions. In 1795, he moved to Simferpol in the Crimea, where he remained until returning to Berlin 1810.