Baron André Étienne Justin Pascal Joseph François d'Audebert de Férussac (30 December 1786 – 21 January 1836) was a French naturalist best known for his studies of

molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil sp ...

. (Two of his given names are sometimes spelt Just or Juste instead of Justin, and d'Audibert, d'Audebard, or d'Audeberd instead of "d'Audebert".) He was born in Chartron, near

Lauzerte Lauzerte (; Languedocien: ''Lausèrta'') is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. Etymology of the name: Two interpretations include the possible Latin root of “Villaserta” and more likely, ...

in the province of

Quercy Quercy (; oc, Carcin , locally ) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Au ...

(now in

Tarn-et-Garonne Tarn-et-Garonne (; oc, Tarn e Garona ) is a department in the Occitania region in Southern France. It is traversed by the rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name. The area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and ...

), the son of Jean Baptiste Louis d'Audibert de Férussac and Marie Catherine Josèphe de Rozet, and was professor of geography and statistics at the École d'état-major in Paris.

Taxa

Férussac named and described numerous

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

s, including: * '' Cochlodina'' Férussac, 1821, a

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...

genus * ''

Helicostyla ''Helicostyla'' is a genus of small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial animal, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Helicostylinae of the family Camaenidae. ''Helicostyla'' is the type genus of the subfamily Helicostyli ...

'' Férussac, 1821, a

genus Various other taxa were named in honor of him, including: *

Ferussaciidae Ferussaciidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Achatinoidea. MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase. Ferussaciidae Bourguignat, 1883. Accessed through: World Register of Marine ...

Bourguignat, 1883,Bourguignat, J. R. 1883. ''Historie malacologique de l'Abyssinie''. Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Zoologie, ser. 6, 15 (Art. 2): 120. a land snail family

Works

Férussac's works include: * Férussac A. E. J. P. J. F. d'Audebard de 1821–1822
''Tableaux systématiques des animaux mollusques classés en familles naturelles, dans lesquels on a établi la concordance de tous les systèmes; suivis d'un prodrome général pour tous les mollusques terrestres ou fluviatiles, vivants ou fossiles''
pp. j-xlvij 1-47 1–110, Paris, Londres. (Bertrand, Sowerby). * The first 28 parts of ''Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles'', on land and freshwater molluscs (4 volumes, 1819–1832), originally begun by his father and later completed by

Gérard Paul Deshayes Gérard Paul Deshayes (; 13 May 1795 – 9 June 1875) was a French geologist and conchologist. Career He was born in Nancy, his father at that time being professor of experimental physics in the École Centrale of the département Meurthe He s ...

. * The introduction and first 11 parts of ''Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des céphalopodes acétabulifères'' (Paris, 1834-5), later revised and completed by

d'Orbigny Alcide Charles Victor Marie Dessalines d'Orbigny (6 September 1802 – 30 June 1857) was a French naturalist who made major contributions in many areas, including zoology (including malacology), palaeontology, geology, archaeology and anthrop ...

. He was also, from 1822, the editor of the ''Bulletin général et universel des annonces et des nouvelles scientifiques''.

References

* Bru, B. and T. Martin (2005) Le baron de Ferussac, la couleur de la statistique et la topologie des sciences,
Journ@l Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique
'' 1 (2). * Winckworth, R. (1941) in ''Proceedings of the Malacological Society'', pp. 34–6. French naturalists French malacologists Teuthologists 1786 births 1836 deaths {{France-scientist-stub