Théodore Monod (zoologist)

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Monod 1967 in Mauritania

Théodore André Monod (born April 9, 1902 in Rouen , † November 22, 2000 in Versailles ) was a zoologist and Africa explorer .

Live and act

Théodore Monod was born as the son of the Reformed pastor and theologian Wilfred Monod (1867-1943). From 1909 he grew up in Paris . He was already interested in natural research as a teenager and often visited the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, where he became an assistant in 1922 and, from 1942, director and professor in the overseas fisheries laboratory. He made many research trips to Africa and was director of the Institut Français d'Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Dakar from 1934 , which he stayed for 26 years. Monod was an expert on crustaceans and fish.

He undertook several research trips through the Sahara , where he collected extensively in botany, zoology, paleontology and archaeological finds. In the vicinity of Essouk in Mali he discovered the 6,000 year old skeleton of a humanoid, the man of Asselar . In southern Mauritania he researched pre-Islamic rock paintings in the Tagant region and the medieval trading town of Aoudaghost . In addition to North Africa, he also traveled to Iran. His list of publications is very extensive with around 2000 publications (including 800 larger scientific papers, but also a lot of popular science). He also examined the ring structure of Guelb er Richat in Mauritania.

In 1923 Monod and his father founded the Tiers-ordre des Veilleurs , which still exists today under the name Fraternité Spirituelle des Veilleurs . In 1925 he wrote a prayer book for this Protestant Third Order , whose members committed to daily prayer. He referred to the spiritual life as the source of his political commitment.

Monod was an opponent of the Vichy regime and refused allegiance to it when he was director of IFAN. In 1960 he was one of the signatories of the 121 Manifesto against the Algerian War . In 1984 Monod, together with Solange Fernex , initiated the first public commemoration of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Paris and called for nuclear disarmament on an international level. He was also a vegetarian , campaigned for animal rights and was one of the forerunners of the environmental protection movement .

In 1963 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences .

Monod had been married to Olga Pickova since 1930 and had three children. His son Cyrille (* 1933) published a selection from his diary entries in 1997 under the title Les Carnets de Théodore Monod . His brother was the French writer and typographer Maximilien Vox .

Honors

The plant genus Monodiella Maire from the gentian family (Gentianaceae) is named after Monod .

Fonts (selection)

  • Méharées, explorations au vrai Sahara. Paris 1937.
  • Les Déserts. Horizons de France, Paris 1973.
  • L'Émeraude des Garamantes. Souvenirs d'un Saharan (The emerald of the Garamanten. Memories of a Saharan), Paris 1984

Web links

Commons : Théodore Monod  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Théodore Monod, Souvenirs sahariens d'un vieux géologue amateur, COFRHIGEO 1986 , website of the Annales des Mines
  2. ^ Website of the Fraternité Spirituelle des Veilleurs .
  3. Quatre journées intenses! Vigilance Hiroshima Nagasaki, August 24, 2012
  4. Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .