The first Russian paleontologist

The Baltic German Christian Henry Pander is an outstanding first Russian paleontologist, anatomist, natural scientist and embryologist. He was born in the Ostsee Territory in 1794 on July 17 in a merchant family. After graduating from the Riga Gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Medicine in Dorpat University in 1812. After finishing the medical course, he began working in Würzburg and Berlin.

In the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences the first Russian paleontologist in 1821 was elected an academician. He spent a lot of time traveling in Central Asia, discovered a lot of rare finds, which later became museum exhibits. In 1827, he left his honorary title and entered the scientific department at the mountain department as an official for the execution of special assignments.

The famous first Russian paleontologist Pander served in this post until his death. His official duties included the processing of paleontological collections received by the department, as well as the exhibits he collected personally. He composed from this material valuable and for our time paleontological monographs. Among them, a special attention is paid to the study of the remains of fishes of the Paleozoic period.

Working together with his contemporary Eduard Ivanovich Eyhvald, the first Russian paleontologist achieved great success, and in this connection, is considered the founder of the paleontological doctrine of Russia. These two scientists can rightly be considered the fathers of Russian paleontology.

Pander in particular became famous, doing research in the field of embryonic development of chicken. He greatly enriched the theories that were established by Baer. In addition to this study, it is possible to note especially valuable works in the fields of geology, osteology and other studies of paleontology.

The works of Eichwald are known for facilitating familiarization with representatives of native fauna and flora (both fossil forms and now living). His scientific work was very diverse: paleontology, botany, zoology, medicine, anthropology, archeology, mineralogy and ethnography. The great importance of his work was for Russia in the field of paleontology. He wrote a number of scientific articles and notes, and also undertook a grandiose attempt to compile a complete description with images of all the paleontological material collected in Russia. His works are still necessary handbooks for everyone who deals with paleontology in Russia. Fossils in museum collections, collected and described by him personally, remain a special property of the Imperial University of St. Petersburg.

You can get a partial knowledge of the main stages of life on earth by visiting the Paleontological Museum. In it, you can find everything from the simplest microorganisms of marine animals to the appearance of a human on the planet. Interesting exposures lead to the disappeared worlds, allowing to see firsthand the whole evolutionary process. Paleontological museum named after Orlov Yu.A. Represents forever preserved by nature and man-made artifacts. Among them are tens of thousands of years on earth insects that can be discerned in amber drops or giant skeletons of dinosaurs, restored by painstaking labor of scientists and researchers.

The Museum of Paleontology in Moscow is one of the largest in the world, and the prerequisites for its discovery were created back in the Petrine times, when the Kunstkammer was opened, showing outlandish fragments of skeletons of ancient animals. The secrets of the past epochs are unlikely to be fully revealed, but the curtain can be slightly opened thanks to the incredible efforts of the exhibits.

Six large halls consistently narrate about the history of the development of life on Earth, starting from the most ancient geological epochs. The Museum of Paleontology in Moscow introduces various species of extinct organisms. The exhibits were collected in Russia and abroad by many generations of paleontologists.