Dr. Martin E. L. SCRIBA Professor of Zoology Born 1931 Teaching zoology, embryology and evolution in years 1968-1971 Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany 1971-1996 University of Aachen, Germany (RWTH) How should I use my time after retirement? To realize my dream of writing this atlas of comparative Embryology Why an atlas? People prefer to visualize ideas so on an atlas is an ideal method of presenting different processes of embryological development. Why compare embryological development in different taxonomic groups such as families, orders and classes? Because closely related organism pass through simple and highly determined embryonic development. At the end of some chapters the relevant results of research in development biology using gene sequence data, gene expression and protein chemistry are discussed. What is the scope of the atlas? The atlas presents an extensive illustrated compilation of embryonic development in animal phyla, it refers to publications about embryology from the 1860‘s until the present day. It is concerned with descriptive embryology, looking at the composition of embryos and larvae and their morphological changes during development. What is the aim of the atlas? Comparative embryology allows the construction of phylogenetic trees. The atlas supports the Gastraea-theory of HAECKEL (1874) and the Archicoelomata-theory of MASTERMAN (1898).
