Jean Cadenat (born
Marmande
Marmande (; in Occitan language, Occitan, ''Marmanda'') is a Communes of France, commune in the Lot-et-Garonne ''Departments of France, département'' in south-western France.
Geography
Marmande is located 35 km north-west of Agen, on the ...
,
Lot-et-Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne (, oc, Òlt e Garona) is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of Southwestern France. Named after the rivers Lot and Garonne, it had a population of 331,271 in 2019.[ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...]
.
In 1930, he joined the Agricultural Zoology station at La Grand Ferrade as an assistant preparator and the following year he completed his BSc (''license'') at the
University of Bordeaux
The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France.
It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Ta ...
. From January 1932 to December 1941 he was at
La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...
as an assistant in the Laboratory of G. Belloc at the Scientific and Technical Office of Fisheries then headed by
Edouard Le Danois. During this period, he participated in many research expeditions, firstly aboard trawlers to the coasts of Ireland, France, Spain, Morocco and Mauritania, as well as participating in the fifth scientific cruise of the ''President Theodore Tissier'' in 1936 which travelled from the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
to the coast of Sierra Leone. In 1934, he began his military service in the
French Navy
The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
, serving aboard Fisheries Patrols. In 1939, he was mobilised back to active service in La Rochelle. When he was demobilised in July 1940, he was seconded as head of laboratory to the Scientific and Technical Office of Maritime Fisheries, part of the General Inspectorate of Livestock Services in Dakar. He was then recruited as an assistant at the
French Institute of North Africa (''L'Institut Français de l'Afrique du Nord'') in 1946. Professor
Théodore Monod
Théodore André Monod (9 April 1902 – 22 November 2000) was a French naturalist, humanist, scholar and explorer.
Exploration
Early in his career, Monod was made professor at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' and founded the '' Inst ...
charged him with the setting up of an oceanographic and biological research station on the island of
Gorée
(; "Gorée Island"; Wolof: Beer Dun) is one of the 19 (i.e. districts) of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is an island located at sea from the main harbour of Dakar (), famous as a destination for people interested in the Atlantic slave trade ...
, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1965. During his nineteen years at the station, he undertook many expeditions to meet indigenous fishermen from Mauritania to Nigeria and just as many expeditions at sea along the African coast and to the Antilles, as well sailing to Guyana via the Cape Verde Islands. These expeditions enabled him to amass very diverse collection of
specimens and study materials, the classification and description of which he was to devote much of his time.
This eventually came under the aegis of Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer (ORSTOM).
[
He described numerous new species of fish and published regional faunas, such as the ''Les Poissons de Senegal'' in 1950, as well as works of identification such as ''La clef de determination des poissons de mer signale dans l'Atlantique Oriental entre le 20e parallel et le 15e parallel'' in 1970, a collaboration with ]