Mikhail Menzbier

He was a professor of comparative anatomy at the Moscow University and promoted an evolutionary view of faunistics in the Soviet Union.

Menzbir was born in Tula where his father was an ensign who came from impoverished noble ancestry.

He joined Moscow University in 1874 where he was influenced by Yakov Andreevich Borzenkov (1825-1883), Sergei Alexandrovich Usov (1827-1886), Karl Rouillier (1814-1858), Anatoly Petrovich Bogdanov (1834-1896) and his PhD advisor was Nikolai Alekseevich Severtsov (1827-1885).

He then travelled through Europe examining museum collections and began to work on the taxonomy of the birds of prey.

Menzbier was a professor of comparative anatomy at Moscow University from 1886 until 1911, when he resigned in protest against the oppressive treatment of students there.

He has been described as "one of the most consistent defenders of the classical Darwinian approach to the struggle for existence and of the selection theory in general."