Biology’ was used as a term to describe ‘the science of living nature’ for the first time around the year 1800. It was therefore not self-evident that the University of Bonn would offer a lecture on biology in 1818-the year of its founding. For the first time ever, Wolfgang Alt and Klaus Peter Sauer submit a detailed and fully illustrated history of ideas regarding biological research and teaching at the University of Bonn. From zoology through botany and genetics to the development of cell biology and microbiology, they provide an insight into the local history of a newly evolving and now centralised university-based field of science.