Arthur Louis Marie Joseph Vachal (25 September 1838 – 31 January 1911) was a French politician and entomologist who studied the

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typi ...

. He described as many as 786 new species and 10 new genera making him the fifth most prolific describer of hymenopteran taxa.

Life and work

Vachal was born in

Argentat Argentat () is a former commune in the Corrèze department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of central France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the new commune Argentat-sur-Dordogne. Geography Argentat is situated on the river Dordogne, 30 ...

Corrèze Corrèze (; ) is a département in France, named after the river Corrèze which runs through it. Although its prefecture is Tulle, its most populated city is Brive-la-Gaillarde. Corrèze is located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, on the bo ...

in southern France, to Martial Vachal and Marie-Rose Roudier. He went to school in Tulle collège,

, and then to Paris at the Rollin collège (now

collège-lycée Jacques-Decour The Collège-lycée Jacques-Decour () is a school in Paris, France, on avenue Trudaine. History The school was founded as the private Collège Sainte-Barbe in 1821 and renamed Collège Rollin in 1830. It was transplanted in 1876 from the Quarti ...

). He then studied law and registered as a lawyer in

Tulle Tulle (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in central France. It is the third-largest town in the former region of Limousin and is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Corrèze, in the Regions of France, region of Nouvelle- ...

. He then joined his father's notary firm in

where he became “notaire honoraire” in 1884. He served as deputy for the Tulle region and in 1881 he became a member of the Gauche républicaine. In 1883 he was elected counsellor general for the Argentat canton. He was also elected for the Chamber of Deputies for the constituency of Tulle from 1881 to 1885. He took an interest in natural history and as a politician he took a special interest in reforestation, aquaculture and river management. He contributed to the work on the plants of Corrèze by Ernest Rupin (1884). He joined the French Entomological society in 1882 and began to collect hoverflies and hymenoptera. In 1899 he published a synoptic table of fishes. He offered specimens of hymenoptera for exchange around 1886 and from 1895 he began to specialize in the aculeate Hymenoptera and began to obtain specimens from Africa and Asia. He collaborated with museums to determine his specimens. From 1895, when

Eugène Louis Bouvier Eugène Louis Bouvier (9 April 1856 in Saint-Laurent-en-Grandvaux – 14 January 1944 in Paris) was a French entomologist and carcinologist. Bouvier was a professor at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Biography Following graduation at t ...

(1856–1944) became the head of the entomology department in the Paris Museum, he and other amateurs were enabled to visit and work on the collections. He described 786 new species, erecting 10 new genera and a subgenus. Of these 412 new names were proposed of

Halictidae Halictidae is the second-largest family of bees (clade Anthophila) with nearly 4,500 species. They are commonly called sweat bees (especially the smaller species), as they are often attracted to perspiration. Halictid species are an extremely div ...

, 136

Megachilidae Megachilidae is a cosmopolitan family of mostly solitary bees. Characteristic traits of this family are the restriction of their pollen-carrying structure (called a '' scopa'') to the ventral surface of the abdomen (rather than mostly or exclu ...

, 135

Apidae Apidae is the largest family within the superfamily Apoidea, containing at least 5700 species of bees. The family includes some of the most commonly seen bees, including bumblebees and honey bees, but also includes stingless bees (also used for ...

, and 88

Colletidae The Colletidae are a family (biology), family of bees, and are often referred to collectively as plasterer bees or polyester bees, due to the method of smoothing the walls of their nest cells with secretions applied with their mouthparts; these s ...

. He was particularly interested in the genus ''Halictus'' and ''Megachile''. After the death of Vachal, his son Jean Antoine Philippe Vachal gifted 150 boxes of specimens and his library to the

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

, Paris.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vachal, Joseph 1838 births 1911 deaths French entomologists 19th-century French politicians