278 years since the birth of J.F. Gmelin
August 8 marks the 278th anniversary of the birth of Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748-1804), an outstanding German naturalist, physician, zoologist, botanist and chemist, and an honorary member of Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Among Caspian seal researchers, J.F. Gmelin is known as the scientist, who proposed the first scientific name for this marine mammal, Phoca vitulina caspica, description, and position in Carl Linnaeus’s “Systema naturae”.
In 1788, the Caspian seal was included by J.F. Gmelin in the first volume of the 13th edition of Carl Linnaeus’s book “Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis.”
Pages describing the genus Phoca, species and subspecies belonging to it: δ – the Caspian seal Phoca vitulina caspica. Source: Gmelin J.F. Caroli a Linné, Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I / Editio decima tertia, aucta, reformata. Impensis Georg. Emanuel. Beer. Lipsiae, 1788. – 500 pp. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.36932.
The first volume of the 13th edition of Carl Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae is available for downloading from Biodiversity Heritage Library website.
In the top image: Johann Friedrich Gmelin. Linda Hall Library.