Karl Gegenbaur was a German anatomist and professor who demonstrated that the field of comparative anatomy offers important evidence supporting of the theory of evolution.
11 Facts About Karl Gegenbaur
2.
Karl Gegenbaur noted that the most reliable clue to evolutionary history is homology, the comparison of anatomical parts which have a common evolutionary origin.
3.
Karl Gegenbaur had been a student of Albert von Kolliker, Rudolf Virchow, Heinrich Muller and Franz Leydig.
4.
Karl Gegenbaur was born in Wurzburg, Bavaria in 1826, and he entered the University of Wurzburg as a student in 1845.
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In 1873, Karl Gegenbaur was appointed to Heidelberg, where he was professor of anatomy and director of the Anatomical Institute until his retirement in 1901.
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Karl Gegenbaur was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896.
7.
The work by which Gegenbaur is best known is his Grundriss der vergleichenden Anatomie, translated into English by Francis Jeffrey Bell, with additions by E Ray Lankester.
8.
Huxley demonstrated that the skull is built up of cartilaginous pieces; Karl Gegenbaur showed that in the lowest fishes, where hints of the original vertebrae might be most expected, the skull is an unsegmented gristly brain-box, and that in higher forms, the vertebral nature of the skull cannot be maintained, since many of the bones, notably those along the top of the skull, arise in the skin.
9.
Ernst Haeckel expanded on the ideas of Karl Gegenbaur while advocating the concepts of Charles Darwin.
10.
Karl Gegenbaur learned techniques as a student of Albert von Kolliker, Rudolf Virchow, Heinrich Muller and Franz Leydig.
11.
Karl Gegenbaur had a strong influence on his environment, with his colleagues Matthias Jakob Schleiden, Emil Huschke, Ernst Haeckel, and Hermann Klaatsch.