Krogh’s Principle and Why the Modern Zoo is Important to Academic Research

Abstract. August Krogh’s (1929) classic essay invoked animal diversity as a panacea for modern research wants and needs. Therein, he sagely predicted a future of go-to model organisms for research and, in that context, clearly implicated the importance of considering outlying, bizarre creatures (reviewed by Lindstedt, 2014). Krogh was clairvoyant in his embrace of biological and disciplinary diversity to study animals, systems, and nature in order to produce the most robust conclusions – indeed, conclusions derived from multiple perspectives of not only the diversity of study organism(s), but also the diversity of the scientists considering them. He coined the phrase “comparative physiology” decades before the emergence of the comparative method (e.g., Harvey & Pagel, 1991) was formulated, and before academics even considered interdisciplinary research as somewhat novel (Collins, 2002; Pough, 1993). Despite its antiquated word choice, we take especial note of Krogh’s (1929, p. 5) statement: “You will find in lower
animals mechanisms and adaptations of exquisite beauty and the most surprising character [. . .]”