Jean Théodore Delacour

Jean Théodore Delacour

Jean Théodore Delacour (born September 26, 1890 in Paris , † November 5, 1985 in Los Angeles ) was an American ornithologist of French descent. He became known as a discoverer and breeder of rare birds.

Life

Jean Théodore Delacour has been on numerous expeditions to Indochina (especially Vietnam ), but also Madagascar . In 1939 the Chateau Clères burned down and in 1940 France was occupied. Delacour therefore went to New York and worked in the Bronx Zoo , but also scientifically in the American Museum of Natural History . After the war, he re-established the Clères Zoological Garden , which he donated to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in 1967 .

In 1924 Delacour and Pierre Charles Edmond Jabouille described a dark blue pheasant type discovered in Annam as the imperial pheasant ( Hierophasis imperialis ). Descendants of the first discovered couple existed in captivity until the 1970s, but no further specimens were discovered in the wild for a long time. When a specimen was caught in 1990, the species was examined in detail and it was found that this is not a separate taxon , but an occasional cross between the silver pheasant and the Edwardian pheasant or the Vietnamese pheasant .

Delacour was a founding member of the bird protection organization known today as BirdLife International .

Books

• Les Oiseaux de L'Indochine Française (4 vols) (1931)
• Birds of the Philippines (1946 with Ernst Mayr )
• Birds of Malaysia (1947)
• The Pheasants of the World (1951)
• The Waterfowl of the World (4 vols) (1951–1964)
• Wild Pigeons and Doves (1959)
• The Living Air: The Memoirs of an Ornithologist (1966)
• Curassows and Related Birds (1973 with Dean Amadon )

literature

• Ernst Mayr : In Memoriam: Jean (Théodore) Delacour . In: The Auk . tape 103 , no. 3 , 1986, pp. 603–605 ( online (PDF file; 241 kB) [accessed August 15, 2011]).
• Janet Kear : Obituary: Jean Delacour . In: The Ibis . tape 128 , no. 1 , 1986, pp. 141 ( online [PDF; accessed August 15, 2011]).
• Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee: On the races of Dryobates Hardwickii in Siam . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 90 , 1938, pp. 109-111 ( online [accessed August 22, 2011]).
• Sidney Dillon Ripley: Notes on Indian Birds. II. The Species Glaucidium cuculoides . In: Zoologica . tape 33 , 1948, pp. 199-202 .
• Oldfield Thomas: The Delacour Exploration of French Indo-China — Mammals . In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London . tape 97 , no. 1 , 1927, pp. 41-58 .
• Fernand Angel: Sur une espèce nouvelle de grenouille du Tonkin, appartenant au genre Rana . In: Bulletin du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle . tape 34 , no. 5 , 1928, pp. 319-320 ( online [accessed August 22, 2011]).
• Jacques Pellegrin: Poissons nouveaux du Haut-Laos et de l'Annam . In: Bulletin de la Société zoologique de France . tape 61 , no. 7 , 1936, pp. 243-248 ( online [accessed August 22, 2011]).
• Reginald Innes Pocock: The panthers and ounces of Asia. Part II. The panthers of Kashmir, India, and Ceylon . In: Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society . tape 34 , no. 2 , 1930, p. 307-336 .
• David Armitage Bannerman: Mr. David Bannerman described the following birds from French Ivory Coast, West Africa . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 43 , 1923, pp. 160-165 ( online [accessed August 22, 2011]).
• Biswamoy Biswas: The generic limits of Treron Vieillot . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 43 , 1950, pp. 48 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heinz-Sigurd Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , Verlag J. Neumann-Neudamm GmbH & Co. KG, Melsungen 1988, ISBN 3-7888-0440-8 and A. Hennache, P. Rasmussen, V. Lucchini, S. Rimondi, E. Randi: Hybrid origin of the imperial pheasant Lophura imperialis (Delacour and Jabouille, 1924) demonstrated by morphology, hybrid experiments, and DNA analyzes , Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 80/4, December 2003, p. 573– 600