Martin Heinrich Rathke (25 August 1793, Danzig – 3 September 1860, Königsberg) was a German embryologist and anatomist. Along with Karl Ernst von Baer and Christian Heinrich Pander, he is recognized as one of the founders of modern embryology. He was the father of chemist Bernhard Rathke (1840–1923). He was the first to discover that the amphioxus was a separate taxa, and not the larvae of a mollusk, as previously thought. He was the author of several writings on crustaceans, mollusks and worms, and also the author of works on vertebrates, such as the lemming and various reptiles.