biography
| name: |
Steller, Georg Wilhelm
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| |
originally Georg Wilhelm Stöhler
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pronunciation:
[steler]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1709–46)
|
| biography:
| Naturalist and explorer, born in Windsheim, SC Germany. He studied theology at Wittenburg, then turned to medicine and botany, and joined the Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg. Seconded to the Kamchatka expedition (1737–44) led by Vitus Bering, he travelled across Russia to the E, explored Siberia and Kamchatka, met Bering in Okhotsk, sailed to Alaska, and returned via Bering I, where they were shipwrecked. His best-known work, De Bestiis Marinis (Marine Animals), was published posthumously in 1751. Steller's sea-cow (now extinct), Steller's sea lion, Steller's jay, and Steller's eider are all named after him. |
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