Vivian de Buffrénil is a French

histologist Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

and

paleobiologist Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactio ...

who has been working at 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 ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

since 1982. His doctorate (1980) and his doctorat d'état (1990), a diploma now replaced by the

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

, were supervised by

Armand de Ricqlès Armand de Ricqlès is a Belgian paleontologist best known for his work in bone histology and its implications for the growth of dinosaurs (e.g.). Biography Early life He was born on 23 December 1938 in Brussels, Belgium. He obtained his first u ...

. His main fields of interest include basic histological descriptions, growth dynamics as recorded in bone growth marks, and adaptation (both histological and microanatomical) of the tetrapod skeleton to a secondarily aquatic lifestyle. He is also interested in life history and population dynamics of exploited or threatened reptile taxa, especially among

Varanidae The Varanidae are a family of lizards in the superfamily Varanoidea within the Anguimorpha group. The family, a group of carnivorous and frugivorous lizards, includes the living genus '' Varanus'' and a number of extinct genera more closely relat ...

and

Crocodilia Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living ...

. He has published at least 92 papers, including 76 research papers, 10 reports on exploited or threatened species, and six popular papers. His first papers dealt with the skeletal growth marks in extant crocodilians, but very soon after that, he also tackled paleobiological issues, such as growth of an Eocene crocodilian then identified as ''Crocodylus'' cf. ''affinis''. Other extinct taxa on which he has published include the Ypresian crocodilian ''

Dyrosaurus ''Dyrosaurus'' is a genus of extinct crocodylomorph that lived during the early Eocene. The name ''Dyrosaurus'' comes from () the Greek for lizard or reptile, and Dyr for Djebel Dyr (mountain) close to where the type species was discovered. It ...

phosphaticus'', thalattosuchian crocodilians, the Triassic presumed ichthyosaur ''Omphalosaurus nisseri'', other ichthyosaurs, the Permian diapsid ''Claudiosaurus germaini'', champsosaurids, the placodont ''

Placodus ''Placodus'' (meaning 'flat tooth') was a genus of marine reptiles belonging to the order Placodontia, which swam in the shallow seas of the middle Triassic period (c. 240 million years ago). Fossils of ''Placodus'' have been found in Central Eur ...

'',

Plesiosauria The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeare ...

, the early snakes '' Simoliophis'' and ''

Eupodophis ''Eupodophis'' is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous period. It has two small hind legs and is considered a transitional form between Cretaceous lizards and limbless snakes. The feature, described as vestigial, was most likely us ...

'', and the mosasaur '' Carentonosaurus mineaui'' among reptiles, and early cetaceans and sirenians among mammals. While his early papers typically dealt with only one or two taxa each, some of his most recent studies are based on comparative datasets including several taxa. As a recognized leader in bone histology, he evaluates drafts regularly for several journals and serves on the editorial board (as Reviewing Editor) of th
Comptes Rendus Palevol
of the

Académie des sciences (France) The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...

. So far, his work has been cited more than 1561 times in scholarly works, according t
Google Scholar

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buffrenil, Vivian French histologists Living people 1950 births