Alexei Severtsov

After private schooling in Petrov, Bobrovsky Uyezd in the Voronezh Governorate, he went to the Lomonosov University in 1885 and graduated in 1895.

He received a doctorate in 1898 for research on the metameres of the head of the torpedo ray and went to teach zoology from at the University of Dorpat (Tartu) and from 1902 at Kiev and then from 1911 at Moscow.

[3] Severtsov followed on the theme of organ function change begun by St. George Mivart and Anton Dohrn.

[4] Severtsov developed the biogenetic law or recapitulation theory of Ernst Haeckel under the term that he coined, phyloembryologenesis, and attempted to explain evolution through morphological and developmental changes.

He explained this in a book in German Morphologische Gesetzmäßigkeiten der Evolution published in 1931.