Jeanne Renaud-Mornant, Born Jeanne Renaud, Jeanne Renaud-Debyser before her second marriage (8 August 1925 Vellexon – 18 September 2012, Paris) was a French biologist specialising in meiofauna.

Biography

Jeanne Renaud-Mornant began her career in 1951 and quickly became interested in meiofauna, a fauna compartment defined by

Mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

in 1942 consisting of small benthic metazoans smaller than a millimetre in size. She obtained a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

in 1953 to continue her studies in Florida, and obtained her doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne in 1961. Soon after, she participated in the first international conference on meiofauna in Tunis and became increasingly involved in the scientific community by contributing to the creation of the International Association of Meiobenthologists that she chaired in 1976-1977 and participating in the editorial board of the official newsletter of the IAM: ''Psamonalia''. She was particularly noted for her work with Tardigrada. In 1967, her work caused her to be asked by the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

in Paris to assume charge of the national collection of "Vers libres" ("Free worms") in which Renaud-Mornant added in 1986, the meiofauna section that is today a full collection consisting of specimens of free-living marine nematodes of

Gastrotricha The gastrotrichs (phylum Gastrotricha), common name, commonly referred to as hairybellies or hairybacks, are a group of microscopic (0.06-3.0 mm), worm-like, acoelomate animals, and are widely distributed and abundant in freshwater and Marin ...

Kinorhyncha Kinorhyncha ( grc, κινέω, kīnéō, I move, ' "snout") is a phylum of small marine invertebrates that are widespread in mud or sand at all depths as part of the meiobenthos. They are also called mud dragons. Modern species are or less, ...

, Tardigrades,

Turbellaria The Turbellaria are one of the traditional sub-divisions of the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms), and include all the sub-groups that are not exclusively parasitic. There are about 4,500 species, which range from to large freshwater forms more ...

rotifers The rotifers (, from the Latin , "wheel", and , "bearing"), commonly called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera ) of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals. They were first described by Rev. John H ...

, annelids, and various minor groups such as

Loricifera Loricifera (from Latin, '' lorica'', corselet (armour) + ''ferre'', to bear) is a phylum of very small to microscopic marine cycloneuralian sediment-dwelling animals that had been determined to be 37 described species, in 9 genera, bu ...

. She also participated in the staging of the meiofauna space of the Gallery of Evolution. In 1986, Renaud-Mornant discovered a reduced type of

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

known as a "ghost-larva". A recognised morphologist, Jeanne Renaud-Mornant also participated in many activities in the areas of eco-physiology, and phylogeny of meiofauna. She described many species of mystacocarides and gastrotrichs and 56 species, 15 genera and five new families and families in tardigrades (

Coronarctidae The Coronarctidae are a family of tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Go ...

, Euclavarctinae, Florarctinae ...).

Some taxa named in her honour

* '' Sphaerosyllis renaudae'' Hartmann-Schroder, 1958 * '' Paracharon renaudae'' Coineau, 1968 * '' Stilestrongylus renaudae'' Durette-Desset, 1970 * '' Chromaspirina renaudae'' Boucher, 1975 * '' Renaudcypris'' McKenzie, 1980 * Renaudcyprinae McKenzie, 1980 * '' Renaudarctus'' Kristensen & Higgins, 1984 *

Renaudarctidae ''Renaudarctidae'' are a family of tardigrades. It was first described in 1984 by Reinhardt Kristensen Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen (born 1948) is a Denmark, Danish invertebrate biologist, noted for the discovery of three new phylum, phyla of ...

Kristensen & Higgins, 1984 * '' Syringolaimus renaudae'' Gourbault & Vincx, 1985 * '' Inanidrilus renaudae'' Erséus, 1985 * '' Thaumastoderma renaudae'' Kisielewski, 1988 * '' Parastygarctus renaudae'' Grimaldi de Zio, D’Addabbo Gallo, Morone De Lucia & Daddabbo, 1987 * '' Rugiloricus renaudae'' Kristensen, Neves & Gad, 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Renaud-Mornant, Jeanne 1925 births 2012 deaths French zoologists National Museum of Natural History (France) people