Félix Louis L'Herminier
Félix Louis L'Herminier (born May 18, 1779 in Paris , † October 25, 1833 there ) was a French pharmacist and naturalist .
Life
L'Herminier was born in 1779 in the aristocratic Parisian district quartier des Tuileries as the son of Jean-François L'Herminier and his wife Geneviève-Victoire Bocquet. Little is known about his childhood. At the age of 16, he began studying chemistry and natural history in his hometown , which he later continued in a hospital in Lille .
In 1798 he traveled to Guadeloupe on behalf of the Directory , where he initially worked as a pharmacist. In 1801 and 1802 he lived on the small island of Marie-Galante . During his stay on the islands, L'Herminier did an in-depth study of the local flora and fauna. At the time of the Restoration , L'Herminier was forced to leave Guadeloupe for political reasons and to settle on the then Swedish island of Saint Barthélemy between 1815 and 1816 . He then traveled to South Carolina , where he was the first curator at the city's natural history museum in Charleston . In 1819 he returned to Guadeloupe for another decade, where he took over the post of director of the Jardin de naturalization de la Guadeloupe . In this position he explored the possibilities for the introduction and acclimatization of new species of reptiles to Guadeloupe. Among the species with which he dealt were among others the spiked-edge jointed turtle and the Stutz jointed turtle as well as the water turtle Pelusios castaneus . In 1829 he returned to France for good.
L'Herminier fathered ten children in his life, including his son Ferdinand Joseph L'Herminier (1802–1866) , who was also a doctor and naturalist in Guadeloupe . He died in his native Paris in 1833.
plant
Félix Louis L'Herminier is the author of a large number of writings, mainly dealing with the subjects of ornithology , geology , herpetology and botany related to the island of Guadeloupe. This includes an important work on the function of the sternum in birds ( Recherches sur l'appareil sternal des oiseaux, considéré sous le double rapport de l'ostéologie et la myologie, suivies d'un essai sur la distribution de cette classe de vertébrés , 1827). Furthermore, he created a systematic nomenclature of native and exotic trees and plants in Guadeloupe. In addition, there are many previously unpublished writings by him, most of which are kept in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris.
Honors and dedications
As early as 1819, L'Herminier received the title of "royal natural scientist". In addition, the Piton L'Herminier mountain peak on Guadeloupe was named after him and his family. The specific epithets of different species were also given as an honor for L'Herminier's life's work. These include the shed shearwaters ( Puffinus lherminieri ), the Guadeloupe Woodpecker ( Melanerpes herminieri ) and the extinct iguana Leiocephalus herminieri .
literature
- Hélène Aurousseau-Guiraudet: Un grand Français: Félix-Louis L'Herminier. Pharmacien et Naturaliste du Roi (1779-1833) . In: Revue d'Histoire de la Pharmacie . No. 97 , 1937, pp. 40-49 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Franck A. Maddi: Biography - Félix et Ferdinand l'Herminier. In: shnlh.org. Retrieved August 27, 2018 (French).
- ↑ A. Hailey, BS Wilson, JA Horrocks: Conservation of Caribbean Herpetofaunas . tape 1 . Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden / Boston 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-19407-6 , pp. 64 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | L'Herminier, Felix Louis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French pharmacist and naturalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 18, 1779 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 25, 1833 |
| Place of death | Paris |