Steller was born in Windsheim, near Nuremberg and studied at the University of Wittenberg. He then travelled to Russia to work at the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.
He was appointed as naturalist on Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition, to chart the Siberian coast of the Arctic Ocean and search an eastern passage to North America.
The expedition landed in Alaska at Kayak Island, staying only long enough to take on fresh water. During this time Steller became the first European naturalist to describe a number of North American plants and animals, including a Blue Jay later named Steller's Jay.
On the return journey the expedition was shipwrecked on what later became known as Bering Island. Here Bering and most of the crew died of scurvy. The remaining men settled in to survive the winter, the camp plagued by Arctic Foxes. During this time Steller wrote De Bestiis Marinus, describing the fauna of the island, including the Northern Fur Seal, the Sea Otter, Steller (or Northern) Sea Lion, Steller's Sea Cow, Steller's Eider and Spectacled Cormorant. Both the Sea Cow and the Cormorant were later hunted to extinction.
In the spring the crew constructed a new vessel to return to Okhotsk. Steller spent the next two years exploring the Kamchatka peninsula. He was recalled to St Petersburg but caught a fever on the journey and died at Tyumen.
His journals did reach the Academy and were published by Peter Simon Pallas. They were used by future explorers of the North Pacific, including Captain Cook.