Jules Bourgeois (31 May 1847, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines – 18 July 1911) was a French

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

who specialised in

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

. The

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

awarded him the Prix Thore for 1908 in recognition of his work on ''

Chrysomela ''Chrysomela'' is a genus of leaf beetles found almost throughout the world, but not in Australia. It contains around 40 species, including 7 in eastern and northern Europe. It also includes at least 17 species in North America, including the co ...

''. Jules Bourgeois was initially associated with his father and brother in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

, as the Paris representative of the family weaving business (1881-1889) and later worked at the spinning mills of H. Schwartz in Sainte Marie-aux-Mines from 1893. He used his leisure time to follow his true vocation, that of a naturalist. Bourgeois studied coleoptera then included in the then group Malacodermata, now unranked ( Elateroidea (in part), Lymexyloidea,

Cleroidea Cleroidea is a small superfamily of beetles containing over 10,000 species. Most of the members of the group are somewhat slender, often with fairly soft, flexible elytra, and typically hairy or scaly. Description Cleroidea is defined by the fo ...

Tenebrionoidea The Tenebrionoidea are a very large and diverse superfamily of beetles. It generally corresponds to the Heteromera of earlier authors. Taxonomy Tenebrionoidea contains the following families: * Aderidae Winkler 1927 (ant-like leaf beetles) * ...

). He described several hundreds of new species in many scientific publications especially in the Bulletin and Annales of the Société entomologique de France of which he was a very active member. Bourgeois contributed to Alsatian entomology with his catalogue of the beetles of "la chaîne des Vosges" and surrounding regions published in part in 1898 in the ''Bulletin de la Société d’histoire naturelle de

Colmar Colmar (, ; Alsatian: ' ; German during 1871–1918 and 1940–1945: ') is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is ...

''. This included information on 3000 species from numerous localities. The author thus showed the great richness of the entomological fauna of the Alsace, the richest of France, after the Provence and

Côte d'Azur The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

. With the death of Jules, the work, of 800 pages, was completed by Paul Scherdlin, conservator of the Musée zoologique de l'ULP et de la ville de Strasbourg,

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

. In 1885, Jules Bourgeois had a rich collection of more than 15,000 species of

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

Coleoptera without counting the exotic species. Because of the annexation of Alsace in 1870, this collection, like many others, was transferred to Paris. Jules' brother Lt. Colonel Robert Bourgeois headed the Mission Géodésique de l ́Equateur (1901–1906) to Ecuador and was sent the beetles that were collected. It is currently in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Jules Bourgeois was a member of the Société naturelle de Colmar, chair of the Société entomologique de France in 1883, and prize winner of the Dollfus price in 1894 allotted by the same society. His ore and mineral collection of the Rouen valley is one of the treasures of the museum of natural history in Paris. In parallel, he was devoted to local history and collaborated actively in the journal ''La Revue d’Alsace''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourgeois, Jules 1847 births 1911 deaths French entomologists Presidents of the Société entomologique de France