Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (16 December 1805 – 10 November 1861) was a French

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

and an authority on deviation from normal structure. In 1854 he coined the term ''éthologie'' (

ethology Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objecti ...

Biography

He was born in Paris, the son of

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (15 April 177219 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories ...

. In his earlier years he showed an aptitude for mathematics, but eventually he devoted himself to the study of natural history and of medicine, and in 1824 he was appointed assistant naturalist to his father. In 1829 he delivered for his father the second part of a course of lectures on

ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

, and during the following three years he taught zoology at the ''Athénée'', and teratology at the ''École pratique''. He was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1833, was in 1837 appointed to act as deputy for his father at the faculty of sciences in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

. During the following year he was sent to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

to organize a similar faculty there. He became successively; inspector of the academy of Paris (1840), professor of the museum on the retirement of his father (1841), inspector-general of the university (1844), a member of the royal council for public instruction (1845), and on the death of

Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (; 12 September 1777 – 1 May 1850) was a French zoologist and anatomist. Life Blainville was born at Arques, near Dieppe. As a young man he went to Paris to study art, but ultimately devoted himself to natur ...

, professor of zoology at the Faculty of Sciences (1850). In 1854 he founded the ''Société zoologique d'acclimatation'' ( Zoological Acclimatization Society), of which he also served as president. He conducted investigations of omphalosites, celosomia,

hermaphroditism In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...

, etc., and is credited with introducing the term ''teratologie''. From 1832 to 1837 he published his great

teratological Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. The related ...

work
''Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux''

Legacy

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of turtle, ''

Phrynops hilarii ''Phrynops hilarii'', commonly known as Hilaire’s toadhead turtle or Hilaire’s side-necked turtle, is a species of freshwater turtle in the family Chelidae. The species is endemic to South America. Etymology The specific name, ''hilarii'', ...

''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Hilaire", p. 123).

Selected works

Besides the above-mentioned work, he wrote: * ''Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux'' (1832-1837). * ''Essais de zoologie générale'' (1841). * ''La vie Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire'' (1847). * ''Acclimatation et domestication des animaux utiles'' (1849). * ''Lettres sur les substances alimentaires et particulièrement sur la viande de cheval'' (1856). * ''Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques'' (3 vols., 1854–1862), which was not quite completed. He was also the author of various papers on zoology, comparative anatomy and palaeontology.

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References

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