Georges Cuvier (Montbéliard, August 23, 1769 - Paris, May 13, 1832)
(Artist: Zdenek Burian, 1960)
A central character in the development of paleontology, he described the first fossil in the Americas and the history of scientific nomenclature, Cuvier used comparative anatomy in the study of large vertebrate fossils to recognize the reality of extinctions, the most impactful concept that paleontology has added to human knowledge.
