Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (Russian:Да́ниэль Го́тлиб Ме́ссершмидт; September 16, 1685 – March 25, 1735) was a German physician,naturalist andgeographer who lived in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and later in theRussian Empire. He was among the first to conduct a scientific exploration of Siberia, which led to the unearthing of the first fossil mammoth.

Messerschmidt was born inDanzig (then part of Royal Prussia in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) and studied medicine inJena andHalle, where he obtained adoctorate degree on "... the brains as the predominant principle of all medical science" in 1713 and settled as a medical doctor inDanzig. He studied the natural history collections ofJohann Philipp Breyne (1680–1764) and throughRobert Erskine, superintendent of theKunstkamera he was invited to St Petersburg. He arrived on April 9, 1718, and was introduced to theRussian emperorPeter the Great in 1716. By decree of November 5, 1718, Peter gave Messerschmidt the task to "collect rarities and medicinal plants" fromSiberia and he reported toL. Blumentrost.

Messerschmidt set out from Moscow on September 5, 1719, through Nizhny Novgorod, Khlynov, Solikamsk, Turinsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Kuznetsk, Abakan, Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, the Sayan Mountains, Mangazeya, the Lower Tunguska, Irkutsk, Nerchinsky Zavod and back. This was the first travel by anaturalist in thisterra incognita, which came to last nearly eight years. He made numerous observations related toethnology,zoology andbotany and also excavated the first knownfossilmammoth remains. Messerschmidt used two simple utensils for collecting data and artefacts, written diary notes and boxes, establishing a tradition fornaturalist exploration to last a century.^[1] InTobolsk, Messerschmidt met theSwedishlieutenant colonelPhilip Johan von Strahlenberg, who had been taken prisoner at theBattle of Poltava andexiled toSiberia.^[2]

Strahlenberg accompanied Messerschmidt during several expeditions and later published some of Messerschmidt's observations.^[3] Messerschmidt explored lands all the way toArgun east ofLake Baikal.^[4] The journey, however, exhausted him, and he returned toSaint Petersburg in February 1728. Messerschmidt was paid 500 roubles as salary but his staff were often unpaid. He never became a member of theAcademy of Sciences and died inpoverty in 1735.

Messerschmidt's notes and collections were, to the degree they were preserved, kept at theAcademy of Sciences inSaint Petersburg.Pallas cited extracts of his journey log in hisNeue nordischen Beyträge. Only much later were his full journal and maps published.^[5] In his travel journal with 202 sheets bound into a leather folio, he described 149 minerals, 1290 plants of which 359 were found only inRussia, and more than 260vertebrates.^[4] Many of the notes were made by his assistants in Russian, while he wrote in German. A statue is erected in his memory inKhanty-Mansiysk.^[2]

• Han F. Vermeulen: 'Enlightenment and Pietism. D. G. Messerschmidt and the Early Exploration of Siberia'. (=Ch.3). In: Han F. Vermeulen:Before Boas. The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment. Lincoln & London, University of Nebraska Press, 2016.ISBN 978-0-8032-5542-5

•  "Мессершмидт, Даниил-Готлиб" .Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906.

• Siberian expedition of Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt

• 1685 births
• 1735 deaths
• 18th-century German explorers
• 18th-century geographers
• 18th-century explorers from the Russian Empire
• German people from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• 18th-century botanists from the Russian Empire
• Botanists active in Siberia
• Geographers from the Russian Empire
• 18th-century German naturalists
• 18th-century Polish–Lithuanian scientists
• Physicians from Gdańsk
• History of Siberia
• Ethnic German people from the Russian Empire
• Scientists from Gdańsk
• Emigrants from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Immigrants to the Russian Empire

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