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70-781: The easternmost remains of woolly rhinoceroses (Coelodonta antiquitatis) have been found in the Ekityki river basin. The Ekityki originates in the Chukotka Mountains . It makes its way eastwards through sparsely populated mountainous areas of the Eastern Siberian tundra . It flows across the Ekityki lake into the left side of the Amguema in Central Chukotka. The Chantalvergyrgyn is a left tributary of

140-652: A human and an orangutan , neither of which was a chimpanzee, and that by consequence the name Homo troglodytes could not be used. Blumenbach was one of the first scientists to understand the identities of the different species of primates, which were (excluding humans) orangutans and chimpanzees. ( Gorillas were not known to Europeans at this time). In Opinion 1368, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) decided in 1985 that Blumenbach's view should be followed, and that his Simia troglodytes as published by Blumenbach in 1779 shall be

210-411: A chick out of unformed substance and his dispute with Albrecht von Haller brought the issue of life to the forefront of natural science and philosophy. Wolff identified an "essential power" ( essentliche Kraft , or vis essentialis ) that allowed structure to be a result of power, "the very power through which, in the vegetable body, all those things which we describe as life are effected." While Wolff

280-405: A different climate and diet. Hence, he argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and mannerism. Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that "individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other Africans as from Europeans". Like other monogenists such as Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon , Blumenbach held to

350-484: A grazing feeding preference. In particular, the enlargement of the temporalis and neck muscles is consistent with that required to resist the large tugging forces generated when taking large mouthfuls of fodder from the ground. The presence of a large diastema supports this theory. Comparisons with living perissodactyls confirm that the woolly rhinoceros was a hindgut fermentor with a single stomach, consuming cellulose -rich, protein -poor fodder. It had to consume

420-553: A heavy amount of food to account for the low nutritive content of its diet. Woolly rhinos living in the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum consumed approximately equal volumes of forbs , such as Artemisia , and graminoids . Pollen analysis shows it also ate woody plants (including conifers ,  willows  and  alders ), along with flowers, forbs and mosses . Isotope studies on horns show that

490-600: A shoulder height of 1.4–1.5 metres (4.6–4.9 ft). By more than 14 years of age, woolly rhinos became fully mature, old adults with a shoulder height of 1.6 metres (5.2 ft). C. antiquitatis individuals of old age display extensive wear and loss of their anterior premolars as a result of tooth abrasion from their intensive grazing lifestyle. The woolly rhinoceros lived mainly in lowlands , plateaus and river valleys, with dry to arid climates, and migrated to higher elevations in favourable climate phases. It avoided mountain ranges, due to heavy snow and steep terrain that

560-410: A similar life history to modern rhinos. Studies on milk teeth show that individuals developed similarly to both the white and black rhinoceros . The two teats in the female suggest that she raised one calf, or more rarely two, every two to three years. With their massive horns and size, adults had few predators, but young individuals could have been attacked by cave hyenas and cave lions . A skull

630-589: A static view of nature and man, but vital nature continued to interrupt this view, and the issue of life, the creation of life and its varieties, increasingly occupied attention and "starting in the 1740s the concept of vital power reentered the scene of generation ... there must be some 'productive power' in nature that enabled unorganized material to generate new living forms." Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon wrote an influential work in 1749, Natural History , that revived interest in vital nature. Buffon held that there were certain penetrating powers which organised

700-460: Is active and operative; in the first instance to attain the definite form of the species, then to preserve it entire, and, when it is infringed upon, so far as this is possible, to restore it." This power of vitality is "not referable to any qualities merely physical, chemical, or mechanical." Blumenbach compared the uncertainty about the origin and ultimate nature of the formative drive to similar uncertainties about gravitational attraction: "just in

770-479: Is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch . The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna . The woolly rhinoceros was covered with long, thick hair that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold, harsh  mammoth steppe . It had a massive hump reaching from its shoulder and fed mainly on  herbaceous plants  that grew in

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840-454: Is considered a pivotal figure in the development of physical anthropology . Blumenbach's peers considered him one of the great theorists of his day, and he was a mentor or influence on many of the next generation of German biologists, including Alexander von Humboldt . Blumenbach was born at his family house in Gotha . His father was Heinrich Blumenbach, a local school headmaster; his mother

910-413: Is given below. † Elasmotherium Black rhinoceros ( Diceros bicornis ) White rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum ) Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros unicornis ) Javan rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros sondaicus ) Sumatran rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) † Woolly rhinoceros ( Coelodonta antiquitatis ) † Merck's rhinoceros ( Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis ) Relationships of

980-417: Is said by several modern authors to have relied on Blumenbach's biological concept of formative power in developing his idea of organic purpose. Kant wrote to Blumenbach in 1790 to praise his concept of the formative force ( Bildungstrieb ). However, whereas Kant had a heuristic concept in mind, to explain mechanical causes, Blumenbach conceived of a cause fully resident in nature. From this he would argue that

1050-517: The Bildungstrieb was central to the creation of new species. Though Blumenbach left no overt indications of sources for his theory of biological revolution, his ideas harmonize with those of Charles Bonnet and especially with those of his contemporary Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), and it was Herder whose ideas were influenced by Blumenbach. Blumenbach continued to refine the concept in his De nisu formativo et generationis negotio ('On

1120-548: The Bølling–Allerød warming , which likely disrupted its habitat, with environmental DNA records possibly extending the range of the species around 9,800 years ago. Its closest living relative is the Sumatran rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ). Woolly rhinoceros remains have been known long before the species was described and were the basis for some mythical creatures. Native peoples of Siberia believed their horns were

1190-862: The Chinese were fair skinned compared to the other Asian stocks because they kept mostly in towns protected from environmental factors. He believed that the degeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race. Moreover, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind "concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities": "Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of

1260-703: The Lena River ). In 1799, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach studied rhinoceros bones from the collection of the University of Göttingen , and proposed the scientific name Rhinoceros antiquitatis . The geologist Heinrich Georg Bronn moved the species to Coelodonta in 1831 because of its differences in dental formation with members of the Rhinoceros genus. This name comes from the Greek ;words κοιλος ( koilos , "hollow") and ὀδούς ( odoús "tooth"), from

1330-648: The prince regent in 1816, made a knight-commander of the Guelphic Order in 1821, and elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1831. In celebration of his doctoral jubilee (1825), traveling scholarships were founded to assist talented young physicians and naturalists. He retired in 1835. Blumenbach died in 1840 in Göttingen, where he is buried in the Albani cemetery . Blumenbach explored

1400-531: The rutting season. Fossil skulls indicate damage from the front horns of other rhinos,   and lower jaws and back ribs show signs of being broken and re-formed, which may have also come from fighting.  The apparent frequency of intraspecific combat, compared to recent rhinos, was likely a result of rapid climatic change during the last glacial period, when the animal faced increased stress from competition with other large herbivores. Woolly rhinoceroses mostly fed on grasses and sedges that grew in

1470-477: The type species of the genus Pan and, since it was the oldest available name for the chimpanzee, be used for this species. However, the commission did not know that Blumenbach had already mentioned this name in his dissertation. Following the rules of the ICZN Code the scientific name of one of the most well-known African animals, currently known as Pan troglodytes , must carry Blumenbach's name combined with

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1540-462: The woolly mammoth its first scientific name, Elephas primigenius (first-born elephant), in 1799. His reputation was much extended by the publication of his Institutiones Physiologicae (1787), a condensed, well-arranged view of the animal functions, expounded without discussion of minute anatomical details. Between its first publication and 1821, it went through many editions in Germany, where it

1610-454: The " degenerative hypothesis " of racial origins. Blumenbach claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian inhabitants of Asia, and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor diet. Thus, he claimed, Negroid pigmentation arose because of the result of the heat of the tropical sun, while the cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Eskimos , and

1680-481: The "founder of racial classifications". He was one of the first to explore the study of the human being as an aspect of natural history . His teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to his classification of human races , of which he claimed there were five, Caucasian , Mongolian , Malayan , Ethiopian , and American . He was a member of what modern historians call the Göttingen school of history . He

1750-678: The Ekityki. Salmon , whitefish , vendace , grayling , pike , rainbow herring (northwestern smelt), burbot , bull trout and loach are common in its waters. This Chukotka Autonomous Okrug location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a river in the Russian Far East is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Woolly rhinoceros Rhinoceros lenenesis Pallas Rhinoceros antiquitatis Blumenbach Rhinoceros tichorhinus Fischer. The woolly rhinoceros ( Coelodonta antiquitatis )

1820-647: The Formative Drive and the Operation of Generation', 1787) and in the second edition (1788) of the Handbuch der Naturgeschichte : 'it is a proper force ( eigentliche Kraft ), whose undeniable existence and extensive effects are apparent throughout the whole of nature and revealed by experience'. He consolidated these in the second edition of Über den Bildungstrieb . Blumenbach had initially been an advocate of Haller's view, in contrast to those of Wolff, that

1890-461: The Lebenskraft (1774). Scientists were now forced to consider hidden and mysterious powers of and in living matter that resisted physical laws – warm-blooded animals maintaining a consistent temperature despite changing outside temperatures, for example. In 1759, Caspar Friedrich Wolff , a German embryologist provided evidence for the ancient idea of epigenesis, that is preformed life, that is

1960-872: The Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro." He did not consider his "degenerative hypothesis" as racist and sharply criticized Christoph Meiners , an early practitioner of scientific racialism, as well as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring , who concluded from autopsies that Africans were an inferior race. Blumenbach wrote three other essays stating non-white peoples were capable of excelling in arts and sciences in reaction against racialists of his time. At his time, Blumenbach

2030-655: The Sumatran rhinoceros around 9.4 million years ago, with Coelodonta diverging from Stephanorhinus around 5.5 million years ago. The oldest known species of Coelodonta, Coelodonta thibetana is known from the Pliocene of Tibet dating to approximately 3.7 million years ago, with the genus being present in Siberia, Mongolia, and China during the Early Pleistocene . The woolly rhinoceros first appeared during

2100-467: The animal could not easily cross. The rhino's main habitat was the mammoth steppe, a large, open landscape covered with wide ranges of grass and bushes. The woolly rhinoceros lived alongside other large herbivores, such as the woolly mammoth , giant deer , reindeer , saiga antelope and bison – an assortment of animals known as the Mammuthus - Coelodonta Faunal Complex. With its wide distribution,

2170-584: The biodiversity of humans mainly by comparing skull anatomy and skin color. His work included a description of sixty human crania (skulls) published originally in fascicules as Decas craniorum (Göttingen, 1790–1828). This was a founding work for other scientists in the field of craniometry . He established a five-part naming system in 1795 to describe what he called generis humani varietates quinae principes, species vero unica (five principal varieties of humankind, but one species). In his view, humans could be divided into varieties (only in his later work he adopted

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2240-423: The center of his description as being the most "primitive" or "primeval" one from which the other forms "degenerated". In the 18th century, however, these terms did not have the negative connotations they possess today. At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to

2310-527: The chest and shoulders. The skull had a length between 70 and 90 cm (30 and 35 in). It was longer than those of other rhinoceros, giving the head a deep, downward-facing slanting position, similar to its fossil relative Stephanorhinus hemitoechus and Elasmotherium as well as the white rhinoceros. Strong muscles on its long occipital bone formed its neck hock and held the massive skull. Its massive lower jaw measured up to 60 cm (24 in) long and 10 cm (4 in) high. The teeth of

2380-479: The claws of giant birds. A rhinoceros skull was found in Klagenfurt , Austria, in 1335, and was believed to be that of a dragon . In 1590, it was used as the basis for the head on a statue of a lindworm . Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert maintained the belief that the horns were the claws of giant birds, and classified the animal under the name Gryphus antiquitatis , meaning " griffin of antiquity". One of

2450-431: The date 1776. Blumenbach shortly afterward wrote a manual of natural history entitled Handbuch der Naturgeschichte ; 12 editions and some translations. It was published first in Göttingen by J. C. Dieterich in 1779/1780. He was also one of the first scientists to study the anatomy of the platypus , assigning the scientific name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus to the animal, being unaware George Shaw had already given it

2520-580: The decade following its formulation and in the thinking of the German natural philosophers . One of Blumenbach's contemporaries, Samuel Hahnemann , undertook to study in detail how this generative, reproductive and creative power, which he termed the Erzeugungskraft of the Lebenskraft of living power of the organism, could be negatively affected by inimical agents to engender disease. Kant

2590-501: The depression in the rhino's molar structure, giving the scientific name Coelodonta antiquitatis , "hollow-tooth of antiquity". The woolly rhinoceros was the most recent species of the genus Coelodonta . The closest living relative of Coelodonta is the Sumatran rhinoceros , and the genus is also closely related to the extinct genus Stephanorhinus . A cladogram showing the relationships of C. antiquitatis to other Late Pleistocene-recent rhinoceros species based on genomic data

2660-401: The desolate winters of the mammoth steppe. Frozen specimens indicate that the rhino's long fur coat was reddish-brown, with a thick undercoat that lay under a layer of long, coarse guard hair thickest on the withers and neck. Shorter hair covered the limbs, keeping snow from attaching. The body's length ended with a 45-to-50-centimetre (18 to 20 in) tail with a brush of coarse hair at

2730-399: The earliest scientific descriptions of an ancient rhinoceros species was made in 1769, when the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas wrote a report on his expeditions to Siberia where he found a skull and two horns in the permafrost. In 1772, Pallas acquired a head and two legs of a rhinoceros from the locals in  Irkutsk ,  and named the species Rhinoceros lenenesis (after

2800-526: The early Middle Pleistocene in China, and the oldest remains of the species in Europe, which represents the only species of Coelodonta to have been present in the region, date to approximately 450,000 years ago. The woolly rhinoceros is divided into two chrono -subspecies, with C. a. praecursor from the middle Pleistocene and C. a. antiquitatis from the late Pleistocene. Mitochondrial genomes suggest that

2870-459: The end. Females had two nipples on the udders . The woolly rhinoceros had several features which reduced the body's surface area and minimized heat loss. Its ears were no longer than 24 cm ( 9 + 1 ⁄ 2  in), while those of rhinos in hot climates are about 30 cm (12 in). Their tails were also relatively shorter. It also had thick skin, ranging from 5 to 15 mm ( 1 ⁄ 4 to 5 ⁄ 8  in), heaviest on

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2940-466: The essential elements of the embryo were already in the egg, he later sided with Wolff. Blumenbach provided evidence for the actual existence of this formative force, to distinguish it from other, merely nominal terms. The way in which the Bildungstrieb differed, perhaps, from other such forces was in its comprehensive architectonic character: it directed the formation of anatomical structures and

3010-454: The growth of woolly rhinoceros from its early life stages based on several lower jaw fragments and limb bones. A one-month-old calf was about 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) in length and 72 centimetres (2.36 ft) tall at the shoulder. The most intensive growth in woolly rhinos occurred during the juvenile stage around 3 to 4 years of age with a shoulder height of 1.3 metres (4.3 ft). At 7 to 10 years of age, woolly rhinos became young adults with

3080-418: The heavy pressure on the horn and face when the rhinoceros grazed underneath the thick snow. Unique to this rhino, the nasal bones were fused to the premaxillae , which is not the case in older Coelodonta types or today's rhinoceroses. This ossification inspired the junior synonym specific name tichorhinus , from Greek τειχος (teikhos) "wall", ῥις (ῥιν-) (rhis (rhin-)) "nose". The woolly rhinoceros had

3150-666: The labors of his predecessors. Although the greatest part of Blumenbach's life was passed at Göttingen, in 1789 he visited Switzerland , and gave a curious medical topography of that country in the Bibliothek . He was in England in 1788 and 1792. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1793 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1794. In 1798, he

3220-413: The large nasal horn was often flattened in cross-section, and abrasion patterns on the horn indicate it's possible use in brushing away snow when grazing. Compared to other rhinoceroses, the woolly rhinoceros had a longer head and body, and shorter legs. Its shoulder was raised with a powerful hump, used to support the animal's massive front horn. The hump also contained a fat reserve to aid survival through

3290-456: The largest living rhinoceros species, the white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum ). Both males and females had two horns which were made of keratin , with one long horn reaching forward and a smaller horn between the eyes. The front horn would have measured 1–1.35 metres (3.3–4.4 ft) long for individuals at 25 to 35 years of age, while the second horn would have measured up to 47.5 centimetres (1.56 ft) long. Unlike in modern rhinos,

3360-475: The last mitochondrial ancestor of Late Pleistocene woolly rhinoceroses lived around 570,000 years ago. An adult woolly rhinoceros typically measured 3.2 to 3.6 metres (10.5 to 11.8 ft) from head to tail, stood 1.45–1.6 metres (4.8–5.2 ft) tall at the shoulder, and weighed up to 1.5–2 metric tons (1.7–2.2 short tons) (with some sources placing the body mass of the species as high as 2.4–2.9 metric tons (5,300–6,400 lb) ) making it comparable in size to

3430-513: The mammoth steppe. Its long, slanted head with a downward-facing posture, and tooth structure all helped it graze on vegetation.  It had a wide upper lip like that of the white rhinoceros, which allowed it to easily pluck vegetation directly from the ground. A strain vector biomechanical investigation of the skull , mandible and teeth of a well-preserved last cold stage individual recovered from Whitemoor Haye , Staffordshire , revealed musculature and dental characteristics that support

3500-567: The name Platypus anatinus . However, Platypus had already been shown to be used for the scientific name for a genus of Ambrosia beetles so Blumenbach's scientific name for the genus was used. Blumenbach made many contributions to the scientific debates of the last half of the 18th century regarding evolution and creation. His central contribution was in the conception of a vis formativa or Bildungstrieb , an inborn force within an organism that led it to create, maintain, and repair its shape. Enlightenment science and philosophy essentially held

3570-648: The name Simia troglodytes in connection with a short description for the chimpanzee . This dissertation was printed and appeared in September 1775, but only for internal use in the University of Göttingen and not for providing a public record. The public print of his dissertation appeared in 1776. Blumenbach knew that Carl Linnaeus had already established a name Homo troglodytes for a badly known primate . In 1779, he discussed this Linnean name and concluded correctly that Linnaeus had been dealing with two species,

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3640-432: The operations of physiological processes of the organism so that various parts would come into existence and function interactively to achieve the ends of the species. Blumenbach was regarded as a leading light of German science by his contemporaries. Kant and Friedrich Schelling both called him "one of the most profound biological theorists of the modern era." In the words of science historian Peter Watson, "roughly half

3710-541: The organic particles that made up the living organism. Erasmus Darwin translated Buffon's idea of organic particles into "molecules with formative propensities" and in Germany Buffon's idea of an internal order, moule interieur arising out of the action of the penetrating powers was translated into German as Kraft (power). The German term for vital power or living power, Lebenskraft , as distinct from chemical or physical forces, first appeared with Medicus's on

3780-481: The pages of the Medicinische Bibliothek , of which he was editor from 1780 to 1794, with various contributions on medicine, physiology, and anatomy. In physiology, he was of the school of Albrecht von Haller , and was in the habit of illustrating his theory by a careful comparison of the animal functions of man with those of other animals. Following Georges Cuvier 's identification, Blumenbach gave

3850-585: The same way as we use the name of attraction or gravity to denote certain forces, the causes of which however still remain hid, as they say, in Cimmerian darkness, the formative force (nisus formativus) can explain the generation of animals." At the same time, befitting the central idea of the science and medicine of dynamic polarity, it was also the physiological functional identity of what theorists of society or mind called "aspiration". Blumenbach's Bildungstrieb found quick passage into evolutionary theorizing of

3920-414: The steppe. Mummified carcasses preserved in permafrost and many bone remains of woolly rhinoceroses have been found. Images of woolly rhinoceroses are found among  cave paintings in Europe and Asia. The range of the woolly rhinoceros contracted towards Siberia beginning around 17,000 years ago, with the youngest known records being around 14,000 years old in northeast Siberia, coinciding with

3990-518: The term "races", which had been introduced by others) but he was aware that a clear separation was difficult: "All national differences in the form and colour of the human body [. . .] run so insensibly, by so many shades and transitions one into the other, that it is impossible to separate them by any but very arbitrary limits." Blumenbach's classification of the single human species into five varieties (later called " races ") (1793/1795): Blumenbach assumed that all morphological differences between

4060-468: The varieties were induced by the climate and the way of living and he emphasized that the differences in morphology were so small, gradual and transiently connected that it was not possible to separate these varieties clearly. He also noted that skin color was unsuitable for distinguishing varieties. Although Blumenbach did not propose any hierarchy among the five varieties, he placed the Caucasian form in

4130-972: The woolly rhinoceros based on morphology, excluding African rhinoceros species: Gaindatherium browni Lartetotherium sansaniense Nesorhinus hayasakai Nesorhinus philippinensis Rhinoceros sondaicus (Javan rhinoceros) Rhinoceros unicornis (Indian rhinoceros) Dicerorhinus gwebinensis Dicerorhinus fusuiensis Dicerorhinus sumatrensis (Sumatran rhinoceros) Dihoplus schleiermacheri "Dihoplus" pikermiensis Coelodonta thibetana Coelodonta nihowanensis Coelodonta tologoijensis Coelodonta antiquitatis (woolly rhinoceros) Pliorhinus megarhinus Pliorhinus miguelcrusafonti Stephanorhinus jeanvireti Stephanorhinus etruscus Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis Stephanorhinus hemitoechus (Narrow-nosed or steppe rhinoceros) Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis (Merck's or forest rhinoceros) The ancestors of Coelodonta are suggested to have diverged from those of

4200-430: The woolly rhinoceros had a seasonal diet; different areas of horn growth suggest that it mainly grazed in summer, while it browsed for shrubs and branches in the winter. Dental mesowear measurements further show that the woolly rhinoceros's diet was heavily composed on abrasive grasses. It is estimated that woolly rhinoceroses could reach around 40 years of age, like their modern relatives. In 2014, Shpansky analysed

4270-408: The woolly rhinoceros had thickened enamel and an open internal cavity. Like other rhinos, adults did not have incisors . It had 3 premolars and 3 molars in both jaws. The molars were high-crowned and had a thick coat of cementum . The nasal septum of the woolly rhinoceros was ossified , unlike modern rhinos. This was most common in adult males. This adaptation probably evolved as a result of

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4340-426: The woolly rhinoceros lived in some areas alongside the other rhinoceroses Stephanorhinus and Elasmotherium . Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician , naturalist , physiologist and anthropologist . He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He has been called

4410-643: Was Charlotte Eleonore Hedwig Buddeus. He was born into a well-connected family of academics. Blumenbach was educated at the Illustrious Gymnasium in Gotha before studying medicine, first at Jena and then at Göttingen . He was recognized as a prodigy by the age sixteen in 1768. He graduated from the latter in 1775 with his M.D. thesis De generis humani varietate nativa ( On the Natural Variety of Mankind , University of Göttingen, which

4480-846: Was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society . He became a correspondent, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1808. This was changed to associated member in 1827. He was then appointed secretary to the Royal Society of Sciences in 1812, elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1813, appointed physician to the royal family in Hanover ( German : Obermedizinalrat ) by

4550-516: Was first published in 1775, then re-issued with changes to the titlepage in 1776). It is considered one of the most influential works in the development of subsequent human race concepts . It contained the germ of the craniological research to which so many of his subsequent inquiries were directed. Blumenbach was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine and inspector of the museum of natural history in Göttingen in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. His contributions soon began to enrich

4620-710: Was found with trauma indicating an attack from a feline, but the animal survived to adulthood. Remains of woolly rhinoceros are frequently found in cave hyena dens with gnaw marks indicating that their remains were consumed by them, which to a large degree likely reflects scavenging of the carcasses of already dead rhinoceroses. Woolly rhinos may have used their horns for combat, probably including intraspecific combat as recorded in cave paintings, as well as for moving snow to uncover vegetation during winter. They may have also been used to attract mates. Bull woolly rhinos were probably territorial like their modern counterparts, defending themselves from competitors, particularly during

4690-481: Was not concerned to name this vital organising, reproducing power, in 1780 Blumenbach posited a formative drive ( nisus formativus or Bildungstrieb ) responsible for biological "procreation, nourishment, and reproduction", as well as self-development and self-perfection on a cultural level. Blumenbach held that all living organisms "from man down to maggots, and from the cedar to common mould or mucor", possess an inherent "effort or tendency which, while life continues,

4760-489: Was perceived as anti-racist and he strongly opposed the practice of slavery and the belief of the inherent savagery of the coloured races. Alexander von Humboldt wrote on his and Blumenbach's views: "While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races." However, selected parts of his views were later used by others to encourage scientific racism . In his dissertation, Blumenbach mentioned

4830-509: Was the general textbook of the science of physiology . It was translated into English in America by Charles Caldwell (Philadelphia 1798), and in London by John Elliotson (1807). He was perhaps still more extensively known by his Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie (" Handbook of comparative anatomy "), which passed through numerous German editions from its appearance in 1805 to 1824. It

4900-400: Was translated into English in 1809 by the surgeon William Lawrence , and again, with improvements and additions, by William Coulson in 1827. This manual, though slighter than the subsequent works of Cuvier, Carus, and others, and not to be compared with such later expositions as that of Gegenbaur, was long esteemed for the accuracy of the author's own observations, and his just appreciation of

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