Georg Wilhelm Steller

Georg Wilhelm Steller (10 March 1709 – 14 November 1746) was a German botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer, who worked in Russia and is considered a pioneer of Alaskan natural history.

Biography

Steller was born in Windsheim, near Nuremberg in Germany, son to Johann Jakob Stöhler (after 1715, Stöller) a Lutheran cantor, and studied at the University of Wittenberg. He then traveled to Russia as a physician on a troop ship returning home with the wounded. He arrived in November 1734. He met the naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735) at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Two years after Messerschmidt's death, Steller married his widow and acquired notes from his travels in Siberia not handed over to the Academy.

Steller knew about Vitus Bering’s Second Kamchatka Expedition, that had already left Saint Petersburg in February 1733. He volunteered to join it and was accepted. He then left St Petersburg in January 1738 with his wife who decided to stay in Moscow and go no farther. Steller met Johann Georg Gmelin in Yeniseisk in January 1739. Gmelin recommended that Steller take his place in the planned exploration of Kamchatka. Steller embraced that role and finally reached Okhotsk and the main expedition in March 1740 as Bering's ships the St. Peter and St. Paul were nearing completion.

Steller (disambiguation)

Steller may refer to any of the following, all named after the botanist, zoologist, physician, and explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller:

Animals

Other

List of minor planets: 14001–15000