Alphonse Milne-Edwards (
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, 13 October 1835 – Paris, 21 April 1900) was a French
mammalogist,
ornithologist, and
carcinologist. He was English in origin, the son of
Henri Milne-Edwards and grandson of Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter who settled at
Bruges (then in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
).
Milne-Edwards obtained a medical degree in 1859 and became assistant to his father at the ' in 1876.
He became the director of the in 1891, devoting himself especially to
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
birds and deep-sea exploration. In 1881, he undertook a survey of the Gulf of Gascony with
Léopold de Folin and worked aboard the ''Travailleur'' and the ''
Talisman,'' researching the seas off the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
, the
Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
Islands, and the
Azores
The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...
. For this, he received a gold medal of the
Royal Geographical Society.
His major ornithological works include ' published in two parts in 1867 and 1872, ' 1866–1874 and ' 1868–1874. His study of fossils led to the discovery of tropical birds such as
trogons and
parrot
Parrots (Psittaciformes), also known as psittacines (), are birds with a strong curved beak, upright stance, and clawed feet. They are classified in four families that contain roughly 410 species in 101 genus (biology), genera, found mostly in ...
s from prehistoric France.
He worked with
Alfred Grandidier on '.
Milne-Edwards also described at least one plant taxon; a species of
gutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus ''Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae, which is primarily used to create a high-quality latex of the same name. The material is rigid, naturally biologically Chemically inert, inert, resilient, electrically n ...
collected from the island of
Grande Comore, Comoros, by ornithologist
Léon Humblot, which Milne-Edwards named ''
Isonandra gutta''.
[''Bulletin du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle'' 5: 187–189. 1899. ] (''I. gutta'' is now considered to be a
taxonomic synonym of ''
Palaquium gutta''
( Hook.) Burck,
and a homonym of its
basionym
In the scientific name of organisms, basionym or basyonym means the original name on which a new name is based; the author citation of the new name should include the authors of the basionym in parentheses. The term "basionym" is used in both botan ...
''Isonandra gutta''
Hook..)
In 1879, Milne-Edwards was the first to describe the
giant isopod ''
Bathynomus giganteus'' in the Scientific journal ''
Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences
(, ''Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences''), or simply ''Comptes rendus'', is a French scientific journal published since 1835. It is the proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences. It is currently split into seven sections, published o ...
.''
A subspecies of Central American lizard, ''
Holcosus festivus edwardsii'' , is named in honor of Milne-Edwards.
[ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Edwards", p. 80).]
Selected publications
* 1850 : ''Rapport sur la production et l'emploi du sel en Angleterre'', Paris.
* 1860
« Histoire des crustacés podophthalmaires fossiles » ''Annales des Sciences Naturelles'', Séries 4, Zoologie, 14 : 129–294, pls. 1-10.
* 1862-1865 : « Monographie des crustacés de la famille cancériens ». Annales des sciences naturelles, zoologie, Séries 4, 18 (1862) : 31-85 ; 20 (1863) : 273-324 ; Séries 5, 1 (1864) : 31-88 ; 3 (1865) : 297–351.
* 1862 : « Sur l'existence de Crustacés de la famille des Raniniens pendant la période crétacée ». ''Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences de Paris'', 55 : 492–494.
* 1864 : ''Recherches anatomiques, zoologiques et paléontologiques sur la famille des Chevrotains'', Martinet, Paris.
* 1866-1873 : ''Recherches sur la faune ornithologique éteinte des iles Mascareignes et de Madagascar'', Masson, Paris.
* 1867-1871
''Recherches anatomiques et paléontologiques pour servir à l'histoire des oiseaux fossiles de la France'' Masson, Paris.
* 1868-1874 : ''Recherches pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des mammifères comprenant des considérations sur la classification de ces animaux'' par M.
H. Milne Edwards, ''des observations sur l'hippopotame de Liberia et des études sur la faune de la Chine et du Tibet oriental'', par M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, Masson, Paris.
* 1873 : « Descriptions des quelques crustacés nouveaux ou peu connus provenant du Musée de M. C. Godeffroy ». ''Journal des Museum Godeffroy'', 1 : 77–88, 12–13.
* 1879 : ''Notice sur les travaux scientifiques'', Martinet, Paris.
* 1879 : with
Giovanni Battista Brocchi (1772-1826) « Note sur quelques Crustacés fossiles appartenant au groupe des macrophthalmiens ». ''Bulletin de la Société philomathique de Paris'', 3 : 113–117.
* 1879 : with
Alfred Grandidier (1836-1921), ''Histoire physique, naturelle et politique de Madagascar''. Paris.
* 1880 : « Reports on the results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean Sea, 1877, ‘78, ‘79, by the United States Coast Survey Steamer "Blake"... VIII. Études préliminaires sur les Crustacés ». ''Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College'', 8 (1) : 1-68.
* 1881 : « Note sur quelques Crustacés fossiles des environs de Biarritz », ''Annales des sciences géologique'' (Paris), 11, article 2, pls. 21–22.
* 1882 : ''Éléments de l'Histoire naturelle des Animaux'', Masson, Paris.
* 1888-1906
''Expéditions scientifiques du Travailleur et du Talisman pendant les années 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883'' Masson, Paris.
* 1891 : ''Crustacés'', Gauthier-Villars, Paris.
* 1893 : ''Notice sur quelques espèces d'oiseaux actuellement éteintes qui se trouvent représentées dans les collections du Muséum d'Histoire naturelle'', Paris.
* 1897 : ''Histoire naturelle des animaux'' Masson, Paris.
See also
*
:Taxa named by Alphonse Milne-Edwards
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milne-Edwards, Alphonse
1835 births
1900 deaths
19th-century French zoologists
French ornithologists
French carcinologists
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
French people of English descent
National Museum of Natural History (France) people
Scientists from Paris