Blainville, Henri De

Born Sept. 12, 1777, in Arques, near Dieppe; died May 1, 1850, in Paris. French zoologist and anatomist.

Blainville was a professor of anatomy and zoology at the University of Paris (1812), a professor at the Museum of Natural History (1830), and successor to G. Cuvier in the chair of comparative anatomy (1832). Relying on the principles of comparative anatomy, Blainville distinguished a number of classes and types of animals. He attempted to divide all animals into three subkingdoms on the basis of the symmetry of their structure: Zygomorpha—bilaterally symmetrical; Actinomorpha—radially symmetrical; and Amorpha—asymmetrical. Blainville proposed the term “type” (1825) for the concept formulated by Cuvier. He definitively distinguished amphibians from reptiles (1818) and divided mammals into ornithodelphic mammals (Monotremata), marsupials (pouched mammals), and monodelphic mammals.