“Known as founding father of embryology”

Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn was an Estonian scientist and explorer. Baer is also known in Russia as Karl Maksimovich Baer. Baer was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer.

Fields: Biology, Embryology, Geology, Meteorology, Geography

He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a co-founder of the Russian Geographical Society, and the first president of the Russian Entomological Society, making him a distinguished Baltic German scientist.

One of the founders of embryology, von Baer discovered the notochord and the embryonic blastula. He also established the fact that mammals develop from eggs.

He proposed the now accepted germ layer theory of development, in which three distinct systems of bodily structures are derived from three distinct layers of cells in the embryo, the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm.

He was a founder and the first president of the Russian Geographical Society, and a co-founder of the Russian Entomological Society.