Alexander Kovalevsky | |
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 Alexander Kovalevsky | |
| Born | (1840-11-07)7 November 1840 Vārkava,Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 1901(1901-00-00) (aged 60–61) St. Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Nationality | Russian Empire |
| Alma mater | University of Heidelberg |
| Known for | Gastrulation |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Embryology |
Alexander Onufrievich Kovalevsky (Russian:Алекса́ндр Ону́фриевич Ковале́вский; 7 November 1840 – 1901) was aRussianembryologist, who studied medicine at theUniversity of Heidelberg and became professor at theUniversity of St Petersburg.[1][2][3][4]He was the brother of the paleontologistVladimir Kovalevsky, and the brother-in-law of the mathematicianSofya Kovalevskaya.
Kowalevsky's family belonged to Ukrainian nobility.
He showed that all animals go through a period ofgastrulation.[1][2][3][4]
Kovalevsky discovered thattunicates are notmolluscs, but that their larval stage has anotochord and pharyngeal slits, likevertebrates. Further, these structures develop from the same germ layers in the embryo as the equivalent structures in vertebrates, so he argued that the tunicates should be grouped with the vertebrates aschordates. 19th-century zoology thus converted embryology into an evolutionary science, connectingphylogeny withhomologies between the germ layers of embryos, foreshadowingevolutionary developmental biology.[5]
He was elected on the 1st of May 1884 a Foreign Member of theLinnean Society of London.[6] The St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists annually awards theA.O. Kovalevsky Medal.[citation needed]
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