LIFE SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Cuvier showed that animals possess so many diverse anatomical traits that they could not be arranged in a single linear system. Instead, he arranged animals into four large groups-vertebrates, mollusks, articulates, and radiates-each of which had a special type of anatomical organization.

Detailed explanation-2: -In the first half of the 19th century, the French naturalist Georges Cuvier developed his theory of catastrophes. Accordingly, fossils show that animal and plant species are destroyed time and again by deluges and other natural cataclysms, and that new species evolve only after that.

Detailed explanation-3: -Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils.

Detailed explanation-4: -Cuvier’s insistence on the functional integration of organisms led him to classify animals into four “branches, ‘’ or embranchements: Vertebrata, Articulata (arthropods and segmented worms), Mollusca (which at the time meant all other soft, bilaterally symmetrical invertebrates), and Radiata (cnidarians and echinoderms).