What is it about?
A commented new translation of the introduction to the famous treatise "De Bestiis Marinis" (Mammals of the Sea). Steller, before describing the northern sea cow, the sea lion, the fur seal and the sea otter, outlined innovative biological arguments like environmental adaptation and factors affecting species distribution.
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Why is it important?
Steller is famous for having discovered many species of plants and animals in Siberia, Kamchatka and Alaska, but actually he contributed to the modern biological thought, with original ideas on species variation in a pre-linnaean time.
Perspectives
This paper would like to help to re-evaluate the role of G.W. Steller in the development of natural history in the Eighteenth century.
Stefano Mattioli
Research Unit of Behavioural Ecology, Ethology and Wildlife Management, Department of Life Sciences, University of Siena, Italy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ecology and biogeography in the introduction to “De bestiis marinis” by Georg Wilhelm Steller, Archives of Natural History, April 2019, Edinburgh University Press,
DOI: 10.3366/anh.2019.0554.
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