Guillaume Grandidier (1 July 1873 – 13 September 1957) was a French
geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
,
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
,
zoologist
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...
who studied the island of
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
He was the son of the wealthy industrialist
Alfred Grandidier
Alfred Grandidier (20 December 1836 – 13 September 1921) was a French naturalist and explorer.
From a very wealthy family, at the age of 20, he and his brother, Ernest Grandidier (1833–1912), undertook a voyage around the world. At first ...
also a zoologist and expert on Madagascar. Guillaume Grandidier was Secretary of the
Geographical Society of Paris and a prolific author.
The ''Atlas des Colonies Françaises, Protectorats et Territoires sous Mandat de la France'', simply known as the Atlas Grandidier, was published under his direction in 1934. Among his other works was the monumental ''Madagascar L'Histoire politique, physique et naturelle de Madagascar''. This work was undertaken in cooperation with his father and others such as
Alphonse Milne-Edwards
Alphonse Milne-Edwards (Paris, 13 October 1835 – Paris, 21 April 1900) was a French mammalogist, ornithologist, and carcinologist. He was English in origin, the son of Henri Milne-Edwards and grandson of Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter who se ...
and
Leon Vaillant
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
. This work ran to 40 volumes.
''
Liopholidophis grandidieri'', a
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of snake
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to Madagascar, was named in his honor by French
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...
François Mocquard
François Mocquard (27 October 1834 – 19 March 1917) was a French herpetologist born in Leffond, Haute-Saône.
In 1860 he was named ''préparateur du physique'' after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree at the Faculty of Besançon. Subseque ...
.
[ Mocquard F. 1904. "''Description de quelques reptiles et d'un batracien nouveaux de la collection du Muséum'' ". ''Bulletin du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle'' 10 (26): 301-309. (''Liopholidophis grandidieri'', new species, pp. 304-305). (in ]French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
).
References
Further reading
*
Helgen KM. 2002. "Guillaume Grandidier's mammal collections from Madagascar". ''Mammalian Biology'' 67 (6): 378-380.
External links
Madagascar Library Listings
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grandidier, Guillaume
French geographers
French ethnologists
French zoologists
Scientists from Paris
1957 deaths
1873 births