Jacques M R Surcouf (1873–1934) was a French

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

. He held the title of

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

and may have been of corsair descent (see

Robert Surcouf Robert Surcouf (; 12 December 1773 – 8 July 1827) was a French privateer, businessman and slave trader who operated in the Indian Ocean from 1789 to 1808 during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Capturing over 40 prizes, he ...

). From at least 1906–1911, he was head of zoology at the colonial laboratory of the Paris National Museum of Natural History. He published a number of notable studies, largely on the subject of flies. In 1909 he published a description of four new species of

horse-fly Horse flies and deer flies are true flies in the family Tabanidae in the insect Order (biology), order Diptera. The adults are often large and agile in flight. Only females bite land vertebrates, including humans, to hematophagy, obtain blood ...

(Tabanidae) from India and Assam with Gertrude Ricardo, a scientist from the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In 1911 he published a noted study of South American

Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advance ...

(flies) with R. Gonzales-Rincones.Cambefort, Y. "Knowledge of Diptera in France from the beginning to the early twentieth century." INSECTS AND ILLNESSES: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY 50 (2008): 173-185. Surcouf was a difficult person to work with and clashed with his peers, particularly, for example,

Eugene Seguy Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gene Eugene, stage name of Canadian born actor, record producer, engineer, composer and musi ...

. In 1920 he distinguished the genus Caiusa from Phumosia in the family

Calliphoridae The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blowflies, blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, or greenbottles) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing bait, ...

based on flies he discovered in southern India and in Australia.Surcouf, J.M.R. 920Révision des Muscidæ testaceæ. Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris, (5) 6 (‘1914’, ‘1919’), 27–124. He was a member of the

Société entomologique de France 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 p ...

starting in 1905, and the president of the Société entomologique de France in 1921.

References

French entomologists Presidents of the Société entomologique de France 1873 births 1934 deaths National Museum of Natural History (France) people {{entomologist-stub