Alfred Duvaucel

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Alfred Duvaucel (born February 4, 1793 in Évreux , Eure , † August 1824 in Madras , India ) was a French naturalist . He was the stepson of Georges Cuvier .

His travels in South Asia

Drawing of a gange dolphin by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins , 1834

In December 1817 he left for India and in May 1818 he arrived in Calcutta , where he met Pierre-Médard Diard . Together they drove to the former trading post of the French East India Company Chandernagore , where they began collecting animals and plants for the Paris Muséum national d'histoire naturelle . They hired hunters who brought them live and dead specimens daily, which they described, drew and classified. They also hunted themselves and obtained objects of natural interest from local Rajas . They grew native plants in the garden of their rented property and kept water birds in a pool. In June 1818, they sent the first shipment to Paris, which included a skeleton of a gange dolphin , the head of a Tibetan cattle , some species of little-known birds, mineral specimens and a drawing of a Malaysian tapir , which they found in the menagerie of the British Governor General Hastings of a copy kept there. Subsequent shipments included a live young cashmere goat , pheasants, and various birds.

In December 1818, Thomas Stamford Raffles invited her to accompany him on his travels and to continue her collections in the places he had to officially visit. He offered them to set up a menagerie in his residence in Bencoolen . They agreed to share the zoological collection and left at the end of December. In Pulau Pinang they collected two new species of fish and some birds. In Achem they only collected a few plants, insects, birds, snakes, fish and two deer. In Malacca they bought a bear, an argus pheasant and some birds. In Singapore they procured a dugong , of which they made drawings and a description, which Raffles sent to the Royal Society and which were published in England in 1820. Upon arriving in Bencoolen, Raffles took most of their collection and gave them copies of their drawings, descriptions, and notes. Duvaucel and Diard said goodbye, sent their share to a depot in Calcutta and then parted ways.

Drawing of a skeleton of a Sumatran rhinoceros , 1821

Duvaucel traveled to Padang , where he was still on the road for a few months and collected specimens of the Malaysian tapir, Sumatran rhinoceros , several monkeys, reptiles and deer . He arrived in Calcutta with 14 boxes full of stuffed animals, skeletons, furs and some live monkeys.

Duvaucel returned to Chandernagore and made some excursions from there. In July 1821 he embarked on the Hooghly River , visited the cities of Hooghly and Guptipara and continued across the Ganges to Dacca . From there he traveled to Sylhet and a chief who sought permission Khasi , the north of Sylhet nearby mountains of Cossya ( Khasi mountains ) and Gentya ( Jaintia Mountains ) to explore (present Indian state of Meghalaya ). In December he returned to Calcutta with a large zoological collection, but has since suffered from jungle fever . However, he planned to travel to Tibet in September 1822 . But due to political circumstances, he was not given a permit to enter Tibet and had to limit his travel to the territories of Benares in Bengal . He could have traveled to Kathmandu in “ Nepaul ”, but whether he actually was there is not documented.

Duvaucel died in Madras in August 1824 . An obituary was not published until April 1825.

Ten years after his death, rumors circulated in France that he was being torn to pieces by a tiger .

Publications

In February 1820, the Asiatick Society in Calcutta published an article jointly written by Duvaucel and Diard, "Sur une nouvelle espèce de Sorex - Sorex Glis", including a drawing of a pointed squirrel .

After Duvaucel's return from Sylhet, the Asiatick Society published his article "On the Black Deer of Bengal" with his drawing of a species of deer that Duvaucel had observed in Bengal, Sumatra and in the mountains north of Sylhet.

Duvaucel's legacy

Drawing of a Sunda smelly badger

The Paris Museum of Natural History received nearly 2,000 animals that Duvaucel and Diard collected during their travels in Sumatra and Java in just over a year. Their shipments included 88 types of mammals, 630 types of birds, 59 types of reptiles, and included stuffed animals, skins, skeletons, drawings and descriptions of Sumatran rhinoceros , Java rhinoceros , black -backed tapir , gibbons , slate monkeys and colobus monkeys , two by then unknown species of fruit bats , shrews , skunks , binturong and sun bears . Initial descriptions of some of these species were published by French zoologists who worked in the museum. Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest described the saddleback tapir in 1819; the Sunda stink badger and Paradoxurus hermaphroditus bondar , a subspecies of the Fleckenmusang in 1820; the Malay pangolin , the bare-footed weasel and the species Semnopithecus in 1822.

In 1821, Raffles published descriptions of the species that Duvaucel and Diard collected together in Sumatra, including initial descriptions of the sun bear , binturong , crab eater , Sumatran langur , Siamang , silver crested langur , large bamboo rat , large picky squirrel, and pale giant squirrel .

Among the many drawings, skeletons, furs and other body parts of animals that Duvaucel sent to the Museum of Natural History, there was also the head, fur and paws of an animal from the mountains north of India , Frédéric Cuvier 1825 , which was previously completely unknown in Europe as described by Ailurus fulgens .

Harpactes duvaucelii Trogon
Drawing of the squid Uroteuthis duvauceli
Duvaucel's gecko

In memory of Alfred Duvaucel, scientific names of some species were given:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c G. Cuvier: Notice sur les voyages de MM Diard et Duvaucel, naturalistes français, dans les Indes orientales et dans les îles de la Sonde. Revue encyclopédique X, Juin 1821: 472-482
  2. ^ Société Asiatique: Notice sur le voyage de MA Duvaucel, dans l'Inde Journal asiatique IV, Mars 1824: 137-145
  3. ^ F. Cuvier: Notices sur les voyages de M. Duvaucel. Revue encyclopédique XXI, Février 1824: 257-267
  4. ^ Société Asiatique (1824) Notice sur le voyage de MA Duvaucel, dans l'Inde. Journal asiatique, Avril 1824: 200-213
  5. ↑ C. Weiss: Biographie universelle, or Dictionnaire historique contenant la nécrologie des hommes célèbres de tous les pays. 2. CHA-GER furne. Paris 1841
  6. ↑ Membres de l'Institut Nécrologie: Duvaucel Revue encyclopédique XXVI, Avril 1825: 274
  7. ↑ JBEyriès, C. Malte-Brun: Nouvelles annales des voyages, de la geographie et de l'histoire. Volume 66, Troisième série. Gide fils, Arthus-Bertrand. Paris 1835
  8. ^ PM Diard, A. Duvaucel: " Sur une nouvelle espèce de Sorex - Sorex Glis ". Asiatick researches, or, Transactions of the society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences, and literature of Asia, Volume 14. Bengal Military Orphans Press, 1822
  9. ^ A. Duvaucel (1822) "On the Black Deer of Bengal" . Asiatick researches, or, Transactions of the society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences, and literature of Asia, Volume 15. Bengal Military Orphans Press, 1825
  10. ^ Société Asiatique: Troisieme Notice sur le voyage de MA Duvaucel, dans l'Inde, ayant pour objet plus particulier, l'histoire naturelle. Journal asiatique, Novembre 1824: 277-285
  11. ^ TS Raffles: Descriptive Catalog of a Zoological Collection made on account of the Honorable East India Company, in the Island of Sumatra and its Vicinity, under the Direction of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Lieutenant-Governor of Fort Marlborough; with additional notices illustrative of the Natural History of those Countries. The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London XIII, 1821, p. 239-340
  12. ^ F. Cuvier: "Ailurus fulgens". Paris 1825 ( Memento of July 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) ( French )
  13. ↑ Georges Cuvier: Le règne animal distribué d'après son organization, Tome 1 Chez Déterville, Paris 1829 book preview page 138: Le Panda éclatant
  14. ^ DE Wilson, DM Reeder: Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference , Volume 1, page 706: Naemorhedus goral Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005
  15. ↑ Global Biodiversity Information Facility: Psichotoe duvauceli Boisduval 1829. Accessed April 25, 2020 .
  16. ↑ RP Lesson: Traité d'ornithologie, ou, Tableau méthodique des ordres, sous-ordres, familles, tribus, genres, sous-genres et races d'oiseaux page 164: Barbu de Duvaucel Bucco duvauceli FG Levrault, Paris 1831
  17. ^ T. Horsfield: A Catalog of the Birds in the Museum of the Hon. East-India Company , Vol. II, page 647. WM H. Allen and Co., London 1856
  18. ^ F. Moore: List of Malayan Birds collected by Theodore Cantor Megalaima duvaucelii Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (Volume 1859), page 455. Zoological Society of London
  19. ^ Catalog of the birds in the British Museum Mesobucco duvauceli Volume XIX, page 85. British Museum (Natural History), London
  20. ^ Integrated Taxonomic Information System Megalaima australis duvaucelii
  21. ↑ RP Lesson: Traité d'ornithologie, ou, Tableau méthodique des ordres, sous-ordres, familles, tribus, genres, sous-genres et races d'oiseaux page 143: Boudou de Duvaucel Bubutus duvaucelii FG Levrault, Paris 1831
  22. ^ GE Shelley: Catalog of the birds in the British Museum Rhinortha Volume XIX, page 393. British Museum (Natural History), London 1891
  23. ^ JE Gray: Catalog of hymenopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum. Part II Apidæ page 302: Tetralonia Duvaucelii . British Museum, London 1853
  24. ^ FishBase 2010, Rohita duvaucelii Valenciennes, 1842
  25. ↑ FishBase 2010 Barbus duvaucelii Valenciennes, 1842
  26. ^ FishBase 2010 Leuciscus duvaucelii Valenciennes, 1844
  27. ↑ Catalog of fishes 2011 Chondrostoma duvaucelii California Academy of Sciences Research
  28. ↑ EC Stuart Baker: Cyanops duvaceli robinsoni . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologist's Club , Vol.XXXIX, 1918, page 20
personal data
SURNAME Duvaucel, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Evreux , yours
DATE OF DEATH August 1824
Place of death Madras , India