Everything about Georg Wilhelm Steller totally explained
Georg Wilhelm Steller (
March 10,
1709 -
November 14,
1746) was a
German botanist,
zoologist,
physician and
explorer, who worked in
Russia and present-day
Alaska.
Biography
Steller was born in
Windsheim, near
Nuremberg, son to Johann Jakob Stöhler (after 1715, Stöller) and studied at the University of
Wittenberg. He then traveled to Russia to work at the
Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, arriving in November 1734.
Steller was appointed as naturalist on
Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition, to chart the
Siberian coast of the
Arctic Ocean and search an eastern passage to
North America. He left
Saint Petersburg in January 1738, eventually reaching
Okhotsk on the east coast in August 1740. It was here that he met Bering for the first time.
In September the expedition sailed to the
Kamchatka Peninsula. Steller spent the winter in
Bolsheretsk, where he helped to organize a local school. He was then appointed to join Bering on the voyage to America. The expedition landed in
Alaska at
Kayak Island on Monday, July 20th, 1741, staying only long enough to take on fresh water. During this time Steller became the first European naturalist to describe a number of North American plants and animals, including a jay later named
Steller's Jay.
On the return journey the expedition was shipwrecked on what later became known as
Bering Island. Here Bering died, and almost half of the crew perished from
scurvy. The remaining men settled with little food or water only to survive the winter, the camp plagued by
Arctic Foxes. During this time Steller wrote
De Bestiis Marinis, describing the fauna of the island, including the
Northern Fur Seal, the
Sea Otter,
Steller's (or Northern) Sea Lion,
Steller's Sea Cow,
Steller's Eider and
Spectacled Cormorant. Both the Sea Cow and the Cormorant were later hunted to
extinction. Stellar claimed the only recorded sighting of a marine creature later dubbed the
Sea Ape.
In the spring the crew constructed a new vessel to return to
Avacha Bay. Steller spent the next two years exploring the Kamchatka peninsula. He was recalled to Saint Petersburg but caught a fever on the journey and died at
Tyumen.
His journals did reach the Academy and were published by
Peter Simon Pallas.
They were used by future explorers of the North Pacific, including
Captain Cook.
There is a secondary school in
Anchorage, Alaska named after him: see
Steller Secondary School.
Animals and plants named after Georg Steller include:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Georg Wilhelm Steller'.
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