Georg Wilhelm Steller

Petr, almost as a supercargo, was Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-46), a keen, young German and the only scientist on board.

These observations were made by Georg Wilhelm Steller, a naturalist  who discovered the  species in 1741 on Vitus Bering's   Great Northern Expedition when the crew became shipwrecked on Bering Island.

Comparing the presentation of Kamchatka, its resources, and possibilities by the German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller and his Russian student Stepan Krasheninnikov, Jones argues that the German's competing loyalties made him more critical of the consequences of imperial expansion.