Marc Soula (27 April 1945 – 23 February 2012) 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 was born in

Oran Oran () is a major coastal city located in the northwest of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria, after the capital, Algiers, because of its population and commercial, industrial and cultural importance. It is w ...

(

French Algeria French Algeria ( until 1839, then afterwards; unofficially ; ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of History of Algeria, Algerian history when the country was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted until ...

) and died in

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

(

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Published works

The majority of Soula's publications dealt with

scarab beetles The family Scarabaeidae, as currently defined, consists of over 35,000 species of beetles worldwide; they are often called scarabs or scarab beetles. The classification of this family has undergone significant change. Several groups formerly tre ...

of the subfamily

Rutelinae Rutelinae or shining leaf chafers is a subfamily of the scarab beetles (family Scarabaeidae). It is a very diverse group; distributed over most of the world, it contains some 200 genera with over 4,000 described species in 7 tribes. Several taxa ...

. He studied the collection of these insects of the Entomology Laboratory of 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 Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He published his works in the series

The Beetles of the World ''The Beetles of the World'' is a series of books devoted to Coleopterology. Sciences Nat published the 24 first volumes; the following volumes and the supplements were published by Hillside Books, Canterbury. The first book authored by Jacques Ri ...

. He wrote volumes 26 and 29, with their supplements 26.1, 26.2 and 26.3. He published the books "Les Coléoptères du Nouveau Monde", with five volumes, as a supplement to the journal Besoiro, as well as a few descriptive notes. In 2002, he described the genus ''Maripa'' to make a play on words with the place name

Maripasoula Maripasoula (), previously named Upper Maroni, is a commune of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. With a land area of , Maripasoula is the largest commune of France. The commune is slightly lar ...

, a commune of

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

. As this name was preoccupied, however, he replaced it with a new name, ''Theuremaripa'' which means "do not get married again" in French. In total, he described 515 taxa over his career.List of taxa described by Marc Soula
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Insect species named after him

* '' Aegognathus soulai'' Arnaud & Bomans, 2004 * '' Dicranobia soulai'' Devecis, 2006 * '' Enchophora soulai'' Bleuzen & Porion, 2004 * '' Popillia soulai'' Limbourg, 2008 * '' Protaetia soulai'' Arnaud, 2004 * '' Spodochlamys soulai'' Curoe, 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soula, Marc 1945 births 2012 deaths French entomologists Coleopterists People from Oran Pieds-noirs