Alexander Kovalevsky
Alexander Kovalevsky | |
---|---|
Born | 7 November 1840 |
Died | 1901 |
Nationality | Russian Empire |
Alma mater | University of Heidelberg |
Known for | Gastrulation |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Embryology |
Alexander Onufrievich Kovalevsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ону́фриевич Ковале́вский, 7 November 1840 in Vorkovo, Dvinsky Uyezd, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire – 1901, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian Imperial embryologist, who studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and became professor at the University of St Petersburg. He was the brother of the paleontologist Vladimir Kovalevsky, and the brother-in-law of the mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya.
Discoveries
Kowalevsky's family belonged to Russian nobility.
He showed that all animals go through a period of gastrulation.
Kovalevsky discovered that tunicates are not molluscs, but that their larval stage has a notochord and pharyngeal slits, like vertebrates. Further, these structures develop from the same germ layers in the embryo as the equivalent structures in vertebrates, so he argued that the tunicates should be grouped with the vertebrates as chordates. 19th-century zoology thus converted embryology into an evolutionary science, connecting phylogeny with homologies between the germ layers of embryos, foreshadowing evolutionary developmental biology.
Honors
He was elected on the 1st of May 1884 a Foreign Member of the Linnean Society of London. The St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists annually awards the A.O. Kovalevsky Medal.
Bibliography
- Kowalevsky, A (1901). "Les Hedylidés, étude anatomique". Zapiski Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk. 12: 1–32.
- 1840 births
- 1901 deaths
- People from Preiļi Municipality
- People from Dvinsky Uyezd
- People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent
- Privy Councillor (Russian Empire)
- Biologists from the Russian Empire
- Russian zoologists
- Russian embryologists
- Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
- Foreign Members of the Royal Society
- Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 1st class
- Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)