Anton Dohrn

Felix Anton Dohrn FRS FRSE was a prominent German Darwinist and the founder and first director of the first marine-biological and zoological research station in the world, the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Italy. The institution became a centre for the exchange of biological ideas through the network of visitors from around the world. He worked on embryology and examined vertebrate origins in terms of functional phylogeny and proposed a principle of succession of functions in 1875 on how one organ could become the basis for the evolution of another of an entirely different function. The institution transitioned from a private one to a public Italian organization through the subsequent management by his son Reinhard Dohrn. He was an elected International Member of the American Philosophical Society. and in 1892 he was awarded honorary membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.