Achille Valenciennes (9 August 1794 – 13 April 1865) was a French zoologist. Valenciennes was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, and studied under Georges Cuvier. His study of parasitic worms in humans made an important contribution to the study of parasitology. He also carried out diverse systematic classifications, linking fossil and current

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

. He worked with Cuvier on the 22-volume "'' Histoire Naturelle des Poissons''" (Natural History of Fish) (1828–1848), carrying on alone after Cuvier died in 1832. In 1832, he succeeded Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) as chair of ''Histoire naturelle des mollusques, des vers et des zoophytes'' at the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

. Early in his career, he was given the task of classifying animals described by

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister ...

(1769–1859) during his travels in the American tropics (1799 to 1803), and a lasting friendship was established between the two men. He is the binomial authority for many species of fish, such as the bartail jawfish. Working in the scientific field of herpetology, Valenciennes described two new species of reptiles. The organ of Valenciennes, a part of the anatomy of a female of the genus '' Nautilus'', the purpose of which remains unknown, is named after him. A species of lizard, '' Anolis valencienni'', is named after him.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Valenciennes", p. 271).

References

1794 births 1865 deaths 19th-century French zoologists French zoologists French taxonomists French ichthyologists French herpetologists French parasitologists Members of the French Academy of Sciences National Museum of Natural History (France) people {{France-zoologist-stub

See also

References