Achille Joseph Urbain (9 May 1884 – 5 December 1957) was a French

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

born in

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...

Biography

In 1906 he obtained his degree from the national veterinary school at

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

, afterwards attaining a bachelor's degree in

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

(1912) and a doctorate of sciences with a thesis involving plant physiology (1920) During his career, he worked in a military veterinary research laboratory, and in the meantime, conducted studies as a microbiologist and immunologist at the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines ...

.La Recerche, L'actuealite des sciences
The forgotten founder of Vincennes Zoo Bois de Vincennes In 1931 he resigned from military service, and in 1934 was appointed director of the

Vincennes Zoo The Paris Zoological Park (), formerly known as the Bois de Vincennes Zoological Park (), and commonly called the Vincennes Zoo, is a facility of the National Museum of Natural History, located in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, which covers ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

. From 1942 to 1949, he was director of 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 1937 he scientifically described the

kouprey The kouprey (''Bos sauveli''), also known as forest ox is a forest-dwelling, wild bovine species native to Southeast Asia. A young male was sent to the Paris Zoological Park in 1937 and was described by the French zoologist Achille Urbain who ...

, based on a young male individual captured in Preah Vihear Province,

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

Selected publications

*Achille Urbain: "Le parc zoologique du bois de Vincennes", ''La Revue de Paris,'' August 15, 1934. *Achille Urbain: "Guide officiel avec plan du parc zoologique du bois de Vincennes", 1935. *Achille Urbain:
Le kou-prey ou bœuf gris cambodgien
, ''Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de France 62(5)'', 1937, pp. 305–307. *Achille Urbain: "Le Kou Prey ou bœuf sauvage cambodgien", ''Mammalia'', vol. 1, 1937, pp. 257–258. *Achille Urbain: "La réaction de fixation dans les tuberculoses humaines et animales", 1938. *Achille Urbain, Paul Rode, and M. A. Pasquier: "La collection des bovinés asiatiques du Parc zoologique du Bois de Vincennes", ''Mammalia'', vol. 3, 1939, pp. 122–125. *Achille Urbain:
Une nouvelle espèce de bovidé asiatique
, ''Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences'', vol. 209, 1939, pp. 1006–1007. *Achille Urbain: ''Psychologie des animaux sauvages : instinct, intelligence'', Flammarion, Paris, 1940. *Achille Urbain, Paul Rode: ''Les singes anthropoïdes'', Collection Que sais-je?, N°202, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1946.WorldCat Search
published works by Urbain

References

1884 births 1957 deaths 20th-century French biologists Zoo directors Scientists from Le Havre French veterinarians National Museum of Natural History (France) people {{France-biologist-stub