Étienne-Laurent-Joseph-Hippolyte Boyer de Fonscolombe (22 July 1772,

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

– 13 February 1853, Aix) was a French

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

who specialised in

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

and

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typi ...

and pest insects.Martial Étienne Mulsant Opuscules entomologiques – Volume 2 1853- Page 129 "Étienne-Laurent-Joseph-Hippolyte Boyer de Fonscolombe, dont il est ici question, naquit à Aix (Bouches du Rhône), le 22 juillet 1772. Son père, (4) conseiller au parlement, n'était pas seulement (') Emmanuet-Honoré-Hippolyte de ..."

Biography

Early life

Étienne Joseph Hippolyte Boyer de Fonscolombe on 22 July 1772 in

, France. He was the son of Emmanuel Honoré Hippolyte de Boyer (1744, Aix, Saint-Sauveur-1810) an aristocrat who studied

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...

, writing on this subject in the ''Mémoires de l'académie d'Aix''. He was educated at the Collège de Juilly.

Career

Upon finishing his education in 1789, "he had attended meetings of the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

in Versailles, with Mirabeau." He was later "Locked up as suspect" (1793–94). These were dangerous times-his father was also imprisoned in the Terror. On his release and marriage he lived with his parents and his mother-in-law at the castle of Montvert. With the death of his father in 1810, he rented a floor of the hotel of Aix and the couple lived with his mother, who found him "Entomologiste très remarquable avec l’intelligence, la bonté, la vertu et le savoir" (a remarkable entomologist with intelligence, kindness, virtue and knowledge). Hippolyte and his brother Marcellin de Fonscolombe never ceased occupying themselves with the natural sciences "like those of antiquity and on medals". From 1833, he entrusted the management of the Fonscolombe estates to his son-in-law, Adolphe de Saporta, and in 1848 he sold Montvert when it was left to his wife. He was then able to devote himself entirely to entomology. Following his father he published most of his work in ''Mémoires de l'académie d'Aix''

Death

He died on 13 February 1853 in Aix-en-Provence.

Legacy

Much of his collection is in the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

in Paris and there are some

Apoidea The superfamily Apoidea is a major group (of over 30 000 species) within the Hymenoptera, which includes two traditionally recognized lineages, the "sphecoid" wasps, and the bees. Molecular phylogeny demonstrates that the bees arose from ...

in the Hope Department of Entomology in Oxford.

Works

*Monographia chalciditum galloprovinciae circa aquas degentum. ''Annales des Sciences Naturelles'' (1) (Zoologie) 26: 273–307. *1840 Addenda et errata ad monographium chalciditum galloprovinciae ciria aquas sextias degentum. ''Annales des Sciences Naturelles'' (2) 13: 186–192. *1840 Des insectes nuisibles à l'agriculture principalement dans les départements du midi de la France ''Mémoires de l'Académie de Sciences d'Aix'' 5 pp. 5–225.

References

*Constantin, R. 1992 ''Memorial des Coléopteristes Français''. Bull. liaison Assoc. Col. reg. parisienne, Paris (Suppl. 14) : 1-92. *Graham, M.W.R. de V. 1992. Hymenoptera collections of Boyer de Fonscolombe, with an account of his work and a description of the natural features of his estate. ''Journal of Natural History'' 26: 1089–1111. *Lhoste, J. 1987 ''Les entomologistes français. 1750-1950''. INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), Paris. *See also Famille de Boyer de Fonscolomb
WikiGeneanet
see list taxon authorities {{DEFAULTSORT:Fonscolombe, Etienne Laurent Joseph Hippolyte Boyer De 1772 births 1853 deaths People from Aix-en-Provence French entomologists Hymenopterists