Henri-Charles-Louis Blanc (15 September 1859 – 10 May 1930) was a Swiss zoologist at the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

. He took an interest in aquatic animals, describing numerous species from

Lake Geneva Lake Geneva is a deep lake on the north side of the Alps, shared between Switzerland and France. It is one of the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lakes in Western Europe and the largest on the course of the Rhône. Sixty percent () ...

. He was also curator of the natural history museum in Lausanne. Blanc was born in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

to Charles Francois and Jeanne Susanne née Rey. He received a degree in science from the

before going to

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

where he received a doctorate in 1880. He then worked at museums in Kiel and Berlin with

Karl Möbius Karl August Möbius (7 February 1825 in Eilenburg – 26 April 1908 in Berlin) was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a director of the Natural History Museum in Berlin. Early life Möbius was born in Eilenburg in ...

and returned to Lausanne in 1883 as a lecturer in histology at the medicine faculty. He became a full professor in 1891, while also becoming curator of the zoology museum (following the death of Jean-Jacques Larguier des Bancels) which he reorganized in 1909 at the Palais de Rumine. He was a founder of the Swiss Naturalists Society. He examined the fauna of Lake Geneva along with F. A. Forel and took a special interest in the freshwater

foraminifera Foraminifera ( ; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are unicellular organism, single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class (biology), class of Rhizarian protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell bio ...

. He wrote textbooks on comparative anatomy. He retired in 1929. It has been claimed that ''

Psammodromus blanci ''Psammodromus blanci'', also known commonly as Blanc's sand racer or Blanc's psammodromus, is a species of lizard in the family Lacertidae. The species is endemic to North Africa. Etymology It has been claimed that the specific name, ''blanci' ...

'' was named in his honour but that species was named after its discoverer, a Marius Blanc.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blanc, Henri 1859 births 1930 deaths Academic staff of the University of Lausanne 19th-century Swiss zoologists 20th-century Swiss zoologists