Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Lamarck was a French naturalist and biologist who lived from 1744 to 1829. He is best known for his theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, which suggested that organisms can pass on traits that they acquire during their lifetime to their offspring. This theory, known as Lamarckism, was an early attempt to explain the mechanism of evolution. Lamarck also made significant contributions to the fields of invertebrate zoology and paleontology. His work laid the foundation for later developments in evolutionary theory, although his ideas were eventually superseded by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.