Pierre André Latreille

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Pierre André Latreille
Birthplace in Brive-la-Gaillarde

Pierre André Latreille (born November 29, 1762 in Brive-la-Gaillarde , † February 6, 1833 in Paris ) was a French entomologist .

Life

Pierre André Latreille was a illegitimate child of Jean Joseph Sahuguet d'Amarzits (1713–1783), General Baron d'Espagnac, and an unknown mother, whose surname "Latreille" was formally assigned to him in 1813. Coming from a humble background, orphaned and destitute in 1778, Latreille found patrons in Paris and was adopted by the mineralogist Abbé Haüy .

He studied first in Brive and later in Paris to become a priest. In 1780 he joined the Grand Séminaire of Limoges in and left this as a deacon in 1786. He returned in 1786 as a deacon to Brive, where he his free time of entomology devoted. In 1788 he went back to Paris, where he caused a sensation among experts with his treatises on the ant wasps (Mutillidae) in France. During the revolution he had to leave Paris as a priest with a conservative conviction, he was also imprisoned in Bordeaux for a while, but gained freedom again through his acquaintance with the naturalist Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent . In 1796 he published Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposes dans un ordre naturel .

In 1798 he was commissioned to sort the insect collections of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle , which had recently been established . In 1814 he succeeded Guillaume Antoine Olivier as a member of the Académie des Sciences and in 1821 he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor . Since 1808 he was a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1812 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . In 1820 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

For some time he worked as a professor of zoology at the Veterinary College in Alfort, École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort near Paris. After the death of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1830, the chair of invertebrate zoology at the Museum of Natural History was shared, Latreille was appointed professor of crustaceans , arachnids and insects , and Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville was given the position of molluscs and worms .

On January 31, 1832, Latreille founded the Société entomologique de France , the Entomological Society of France, in Paris , whose presidency he held until the end of his life. After his death in 1833, Amédée Louis Michel Lepeletier took over the presidency.

From 1796 to 1833 Latreille published a large number of writings that made him one of the founders of modern entomology. He not only described a large number of new species, but also grouped them into newly introduced genera and families, thus making an important contribution to biological systematics .

Taxa named after Latreille

Fonts

  • Précis des caractères génériques des insectes disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796).
  • Histoire naturelle des reptiles (4 volumes, 1801) avec Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt (1751–1812) (ce dernier ne traite que des salamandres), éditée comme une partie de l'œuvre de Buffon.
  • Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des crustacés et insectes (14 volumes, 1802–1805), éditée également dans une “suite” à Buffon .
  • Genera crustaceorum et insectorum, secundum ordinem naturalem et familias disposita (4 volumes, 1806–1807).
  • Considérations sur l'ordre naturel des animaux composant les classes des crustacés, des arachnides, et des insectes (1810).
  • Familles naturelles du règne animal, exposés succinctement et dans un ordre analytique (1825).
  • Cours d'entomologie (seul le premier volume paraît, 1831)
  • (his sections on crustaceans, arachnids and insects in Règne animal by Georges Cuvier )
  • Article in Annales du Muséum , the Encyclopédie méthodique , the Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogy
  2. ^ A b Claude Dupuis: Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833): The foremost entomologist of his time. In: Annu. Rev. Entomol. , 1974, 19, pp. 1-14, doi: 10.1146 / annurev.en.19.010174.000245
personal data
SURNAME Latreille, Pierre André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entomologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Brive-la-Gaillarde
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1833
Place of death Paris