[1] Frederic was the head keeper of the menagerie at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris from 1804 to 1838.

He used both words in promoting the inheritance of acquired characteristics based on his studies of animal behaviour.

[2][1] Although an advocate of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, similar to his brother he denied the transmutation of species.

[3] He believed that behavioral patterns in animals change over time in relation to environmentally induced needs.

Historian Robert J. Richards has written that Cuvier "did not believe that the anatomical patterns of species were modified over time (though he did admit they changed in nonessential ways through the inheritance of acquired characteristics...