Pierre Hupé (22 March 1907, Baye – 23 August 2003,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a French

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. Hupé studied sciences at the Universities of

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

and Nancy, where he graduated in 1931 with the geneticist

Lucien Cuénot Lucien Claude Marie Julien Cuénot (; 21 October 1866 – 7 January 1951) was a French biologist. In the first half of the 20th century, Mendelism was not a popular subject among French biologists. Cuénot defied popular opinion and shirked the � ...

. Hupé was an excellent draftsman, for which he also won prizes at the University. After that he was high school teacher of natural sciences. In the 1930s he made the first geological inventory of the Pyrenees on an assignment by Professor Charles Jacob. During World War II he was an artillery officer and received the

Croix de Guerre The (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awarded during World ...

. Between 1945 and 1949 he worked for the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

and in 1951 at started at the Laboratory of Geology of the Sorbonne. In 1960 he was appointed professor of paleontology at the Sorbonne (later the University of Paris VI, Pierre et Marie Curie), where he founded the Laboratory of Invertebrate Paleontology in 1967, which he directed until his retirement in 1977. Hupé is known for his classical works on

trilobites Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, ...

, especially their classification. This work later formed the basis for the classification in the

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology The ''Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology,'' published from 1953–2007 by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas, then 2009–present by the University of Kansas Paleontological Institute, is a definitive multi-authore ...

. He is also known for his work on the trilobites of the

Lower Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordovici ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, and his detailed

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

, commissioned by the Service Geologique du Maroc in 1952. He gained international recognition with his

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

of the Lower and Middle

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

and

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

in southern Morocco, and received in 1957 the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal. In 1959 he received his doctorate with a thesis titled ''Nouvelle contribution a l´etude du Cambrien Marocain''. He left his trilobites collection to the University of Rennes I, and to the Natural History Museum in Havre.

Main publications

*Classe des Trilobites, in J. Piveteau ''Traité de Paléontologie'', Band 3, Masson 1953, S. 44-246 *Classification des Trilobites, Annales de Paléontologie, 1953, 1955 *Contribution a l´etude du Cambrien inferieur et du Precambrien III de l´Antiatlas marocain, Notes et Memoires, Service des Mines et de la Carte geologique du Maroc, Band 103, 1953, pp. 1–402

Sources

* * Obituary of Francoise Bigey, the Paleontological Society Newsletter (Priscum), Volume 12, No.2, Winter 2004 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hupe, Pierre French paleontologists 1907 births 2003 deaths Nancy-Université alumni