Wladimir Besnard (1890,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

– 1960,

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

) was a French biologist and Brazilian oceanographer, and is considered to be the father of Brazilian

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...

.Homenagem aos mestres: esculturas na USP, vol. 5 of "Cadernos CPC", 2002,
Biographical sketch of W. Besnard
/ref> He was born in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

of French parents. As a biologist he is credited (together with Theodore Monod) with the discovery of the skeleton of the

Asselar man Asselar man is a Neolithic (Later Stone Age) skeleton found at Adrar des Ifoghas, Mali, which has been dated to between 9500 BP and 7000 BP, amid the early Holocene Wet Phase. The Asselar skeleton was likely intentionally buried. Geography A ...

in 1927 (although various sources refer to him as M.M. Besnard or M.V. Besnard). An oceanographic ship, some undersea features (Besnard Bank, Besnard Passage), and a street in São Paulo (Rua Professor Wladimir Besnard) are named in his honor.

Oceanographic ship

During 1967–2008 Brazil operated ''Professor W. Besnard'', its only oceanographic vessel at that time. The ship was launched on August 18, 1966, from the shipyard Mjellem & Karlsen,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, and belonged to the Institute of Oceanography of the

University of São Paulo The Universidade de São Paulo (, USP) is a public research university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and the largest public university in Brazil. The university was founded on 25 January 1934, regrouping already existing schools in ...

. In 1988 the ship suffered damage from a fire. In 2012 a new ship, ''

Alpha Crucis Acrux is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Crux. It has the Bayer designation α Crucis, which is Latinised to Alpha Crucis and abbreviated Alpha Cru or α Cru. With a combined visual magnitude of +0.76, it is the 13 ...

'', has replaced the ''Professor W. Besnard''."Novo navio oceanográfico da USP já está a caminho do Brasil"
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Besnard, Wladimir 1890 births 1960 deaths 20th-century French biologists French oceanographers 20th-century Brazilian biologists French expatriates in the Russian Empire French emigrants to Brazil