1769-1832. French comparative anatomist. In
1799 he showed that some species have become
extinct by reconstructing extinct giant
animals that he believed were destroyed in a
series of giant deluges. These ideas are
expressed in Recherches sur les ossaments
fossiles de quadrupedes 1812 and Discours sur
les revolutions de la surface du globe 1825.
In 1798 Cuvier produced Tableau elementaire
de l'histoire naturelle des animaux, in which
his scheme of classification is outlined. He
was professor of natural history in the
College de France from 1799 and at the Jardin
des Plantes from 1802; at the Restoration in
1815 he was elected chancellor of the
University of Paris. Cuvier was the first to
relate the structure of fossil animals to
that of their living relatives. His great
work Le Regne animal/ The Animal Kingdom 1817
is a systematic survey.