Louis Étienne Thirioux

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Louis Étienne Thirioux (born March 18, 1846 in Saint-Aignan-le-Jaillard , Loiret department , France , † June 11, 1917 in Port Mathurin , Rodrigues ) was a French amateur paleontologist and hairdresser who dealt with the finds of subfossil remains of made a name for birds and reptiles that are now extinct .

Life

Birth entry of Louis Étienne Thirioux March 18, 1846 in Saint-Aignan-le-Jaillard

Thirioux was the son of the tailor Étienne Louis Thirioux and his wife Julie Victoire Thion. He was a fashion hairdresser by profession. At the age of 24 he emigrated from France to Mauritius , where he settled in Port Louis . In 1899, Thirioux began his paleontological work in Mauritius, particularly in the area around the Le Pouce and Corps de Garde mountains . He also corresponded with Alfred Newton , to whom he sold his collection. After Newton's death in 1907, Thirioux sent the subfossil material to Hans Friedrich Gadow in Cambridge by 1908 . Thirioux collected hundreds of subfossil bones from birds and reptiles, including the Mauritian star ( Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus ) described by Julian Pender Hume in 2014 , the Mauritian owl ( Mascarenotus sauzieri ) and the Mauritius gray parakeet ( Psittacula bensoni ). In 1900 he found an almost complete skeleton of the Mauritius giant skink ( Leiolopisma mauritiana ) at the foot of the mountain Le Pouce . In 1903 he found a nearly complete skeleton of the Mauritius railroad ( Aphanapteryx bonasia ). In 1917 he collected the last two known specimens of the Rodrigues day gecko ( Phelsuma edwardnewtoni ) on the island of Frégate near Rodrigues . Among the best-known finds by Thirioux, however, are two dodo skeletons, which he unearthed in the valleys of Mount Le Pouce around 1904 and which are among the most important examples of dodo in the museum's collections. A nearly complete skeleton, which is assigned to an individual, is in the Natural History Museum of the Mauritius Institute . A second skeleton, believed to have been reconstructed from two individuals, is kept in the Durban Natural Science Museum .

Dedication names

The beetle species Copelatus thiriouxi , the extinct snail species Erepta thiriouxi and the extinct pigeon species Columba thiriouxi are named after Louis Étienne Thirioux . The snail species Scyllarus thiriouxi from the island of Mauritius , described by Eugène Louis Bouvier in 1914, is now a synonym for the snail species Biarctus pumilus , which is widespread in the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean.

literature

  • Louis Halais: Louis Etienne Thirioux In: Auguste Toussaint (ed.): Dictionnaire de biographie mauricienne , Fascicle 7, November 1942, Esclapon, Port Louis, Mauritius, pp. 222–223.
  • Leon PAM Claessens & Julian P. Hume: Provenance and History of the Thirioux Dodos In: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 15, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Volume 35, Supplement to Number 6, 2015, pp. 21-28

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Birth entry in the Loiret archive (Vue 17/47) (French) ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / consultation.archives-loiret.com
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Leon PAM Claessens & Julian P. Hume: Provenance and History of the Thirioux Dodos In: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 15, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Volume 35, Supplement to Number 6, 2015, p. 21-28
  3. ^ Julian Pender Hume: Systematics, morphology, and ecological history of the Mascarene starlings (Aves: Sturnidae) with the description of a new genus and species from Mauritius. Zootaxa 3849 (1), 2014, pp. 1-75
  4. ^ A b Louis Etienne Thirioux . Le musée du Dodo. accessed on March 10, 2017
  5. ↑ Raymond Peschet : Coléoptères de iles et Mascareignes Séchelles. Dytiscidae et Gyrinidae In: Annales de la Société entomologique de France, 1917, pp. 29-30
  6. ↑ Julian Pender Hume: Systematics, morphology, and ecology of pigeons and doves (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands, with three new species. Zootaxa 3124, 2011, pp. 1-62
personal data
SURNAME Thirioux, Louis Etienne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French amateur naturalist and hairdresser
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Aignan-le-Jaillard , Loiret department , France
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1917
Place of death Port Mathurin , Rodrigues