Koen Fraussen (born 1965) is a Belgian amateur

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

, shell collector, and expert in the

Buccinoidea Buccinoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of very small to large predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. This superfamily is in the clade Neogastropoda according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). It had been plac ...

Biography

Fraussen in the son of a painter, and began collecting shells at the age of 2. He is a part-time bus driver who also studies

whelk Whelk (also known as scungilli) is a common name applied to various kinds of sea snail. Although a number of whelks are relatively large and are in the family Buccinidae (the true whelks), the word ''whelk'' is also applied to some other marine ...

shells for the

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

. In exchange for his curatorial work, Fraussen is given a

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). Of ...

of each specimen he identifies.

Philippe Bouchet Philippe Bouchet (born 1953) is a French biologist whose primary scientific fields of study are malacology (the study of molluscs) and taxonomy. He works at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He is also a Commissioner of the ...

considers Fraussen "the world expert" on the

Buccinidae The Buccinidae are a very large and diverse taxonomic family of large sea snails, often known as whelks or true whelks.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2010). Buccinidae. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Marine Mollusca database. A ...

. In 2010, Fraussen and biologist Stefaan Wera released the book ''Schelpen aan de Belgische kust''. With the Muséum National, Fraussen published 20 new species of the Photinae (subfamily of the

Nassariidae The Nassariidae, Nassa mud snails (USA), or dog whelks (UK), are a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Neogastropoda. "Dog whelk" also refers to ''Nucella lapillus''. Shell description T ...

) as of 2017.

Legacy

Fraussen is honored by several

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

s, including '' Buccinum frausseni'', '' Conus frausseni'', '' Eccliseogyra frausseni'', ''

Engina frausseni ''Engina'' is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Pisaniidae. Species Species within the genus ''Engina'' include: * '' Engina albocincta'' Pease, 1860 * '' Engina alveolata'' (Kiener, 1836) * '' Engina androyensis'' ...

'', '' Fusinus frausseni'', '' Inquisitor frausseni'', '' Metaal frausseni'', '' Pristiterebra frausseni'', and ''

Tomlinia frausseni ''Tomlinia'' is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Tomliniinae of the family Nassariidae. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Tomlinia Peile, 1937. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fraussen, Koen Belgian malacologists Living people 1965 births