Cuvier

Georges Cuvier (1769 - 1832), an anatomist, is credited with the next major innovation in taxonomy. He dissected invertebrates and perceived that they could be arranged in large groups corresponding to phyla. Invertebrates had of course been dissected before, out of interest (Gesner published illustrations of the insides of a sea urchin, for example), but Cuvier anatomised in order to classify the animals. The use of internal features helps to eliminate many superficial similarities of animals, such as shells of limpets, barnacles and sea urchins, that might group them together although the animals are quite unlike one another.