Jean-Pierre Sylvestre de Grateloup (31 December 1782 – 25 August 1862) was a French physician and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

. He completed his medical studies at

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

and remained attached to the countryside of the southwest of France. In company with his childhood friend

Jean-Marie Léon Dufour Jean-Marie is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Marie Carroll (born 1956), English musician and composer * Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 1950), French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic med ...

(1780–1865) and Dufour's friend

Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent Jean-Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent was a French naturalist, officer and politician. He was born on 6 July 1778 in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) and died on 22 December 1846 in Paris. Biologist and geographer, he was particularly int ...

(1778–1846) he expressed his enthusiasm for

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

specializing in the study of

cryptogam A cryptogam (scientific name ''Cryptogamae'') is a plant, in the broad sense of the word, or a plant-like organism that share similar characteristics, such as being multicellular, photosynthetic, and primarily immobile, that reproduces via sp ...

s, the

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s and other plants that reproduce through

spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual reproduction, sexual (in fungi) or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for biological dispersal, dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores fo ...

s. Then the shells found in the region attracted his attention, in particular those from the

Adour The Adour (; ; ) is a river in southwestern France. It rises in High- Bigorre ( Pyrenees), in the commune of Aspin-Aure, and flows into the Atlantic Ocean ( Bay of Biscay) near Bayonne. It is long, of which the uppermost ca. is known as the ' ...

.Grateloup, "Tableau des coquilles Fossiles qu'on rencontre dans des terrains calcaires tertiaires (faluns) des environs de Dax" in ''Actes de la Société linnéenne de Bordeaux'', 183;: ''Mémoire de géo-zoologie sur les oursins fossiles (échinides) qui se rencontrent dans les terrains caleaires des environs de Dax'', 1836;
Conchyliologie fossile des terrains tertiaires du bassin de l'Adour(environs de Dax)
', Bordeaux, 1840. He practiced medicine in the military hospitals at

Dax The DAX (''Deutscher Aktienindex'' (German stock index); ) is a stock market index consisting of the 40 major German blue chip companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is a total return index. Prices are taken from the Xetra t ...

, where from his graduation from Montpellier in 1807 he worked in the company of Jean Thore (1762–1823). Under the

Bourbon Restoration Bourbon Restoration may refer to: France under the House of Bourbon: * Bourbon Restoration in France (1814, after the French revolution and Napoleonic era, until 1830; interrupted by the Hundred Days in 1815) Spain under the Spanish Bourbons: * Ab ...

he experienced setbacks in his career. After his marriage in 1822 he moved to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

. As a corresponding member of the ''

Société linnéenne de Paris Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

'', the world's first "

Linnaean society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

", he was made director of the

natural history museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

of Dax, which was founded on the collections of Jacques-François de Borda d'Oro (1718–1804). In addition to his own works he edited articles for the ''Annales générales de sciences physiques'' by Bory de Saint-Vincent,

Auguste Drapiez Pierre Auguste Joseph Drapiez (28 August 1778, Lille – 28 December 1856, Brussels) was a Belgian naturalist. He founded with the French botanist Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846) and the Belgian chemist Jean-Baptiste Van Mons ...

(1778–1856) et Jean-Baptiste Van Mons (1765–1842). Hi
''Catalogue des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles: vivants et fossiles, de la France continentale e insulaire''
1855, catalogued all the

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

s found in France, living and fossilized.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grateloup, Jean-Pierre Sylvestre de 1782 births 1862 deaths French naturalists