彼得·西蒙·帕拉斯

Peter Simon Pallas FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist, botanist, ethnographer, explorer, geographer, geologist, natural historian, and taxonomist. He studied natural sciences at various universities in early modern Germany and worked primarily in the Russian Empire between 1767 and 1810.

Life and work

Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University of Göttingen. In 1760, he moved to the University of Leiden and passed his doctor's degree at the age of 19.

Pallas travelled throughout the Dutch Republic and to London, improving his medical and surgical knowledge. He then settled at The Hague, and his new system of animal classification was praised by Georges Cuvier. Pallas wrote Miscellanea Zoologica (1766), which included descriptions of several vertebrates new to science which he had discovered in the Dutch museum collections. A planned voyage to Southern Africa and the East Indies fell through when his father recalled him to Berlin. There, he began work on his Spicilegia Zoologica (1767–1780).

Pallasite

In 1772, Pallas was shown a 680-kg lump of metal that had been found near Krasnoyarsk. Pallas arranged for it to be transported to St Petersburg. Subsequent analysis of the metal showed it to be a new type of stony-iron meteorite. This new type of meteorite was called pallasite after him; the meteorite itself is named Krasnojarsk or sometimes Pallas Iron (the name given to it by Ernst Chladni in 1794).

Commemorated

Several animals were described by Pallas, and his surname is included in their common names, including: Pallas's glass lizard, Pallas's viper, Pallas's cat, Pallas's long-tongued bat, Pallas's tube-nosed bat, Pallas's squirrel, Pallas's leaf warbler, Pallas's cormorant, Pallas's fish-eagle, Pallas's gull, Pallas's sandgrouse, Pallas's rosefinch, and Pallas's grasshopper warbler.

Also, he is honoured in the scientific names of animals described by others, including: the Dagestani tortoise (Testudo graeca pallasi), Pallas's pika (Ochotona pallasi), Pallas's reed bunting (Emberiza pallasi), the East Siberian grayling (Thymallus pallasii) and the Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii).

He was also honoured in the name of a plant genus, Petrosimonia which is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Amaranthaceae.

Streets in Berlin and Castrop-Rauxel are named Pallasstraße. Pallasovka, a city in Volgograd Oblast, is named after him, and his monument stands there.

An asteroid is named after him: 21087 Petsimpallas.……

Works

Dissertatio inauguralis de infestis viventibus infra viventia (Leiden: Lugduni Batavorum, 1760).

Elenchus zoophytorum, sistens generum adumbrationes generaliores et specierum cognitarum succinctas descriptiones, cum selectis auctorum synonymis (The Hague: van Cleef, 1766).

Elenchus zoophytorum (in Latin). Den Haag: Franz Varrentrapp. 1766.

Miscellanea zoologica, quibus novæ imprimis atque obscuræ animalum species describuntur et observationibus iconibusque illustrantur (The Hague, 1766).

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 1. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1774.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 2. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1767.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 3. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1767.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 4. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1767.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 5. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1769.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 6. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1769.

Spicilegia zoologica (in Latin). Vol. 7. Berlin: Gottlieb August Lange. 1769.