Armand de Ricqlès is 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 ...

best known for his work in bone

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology that studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissue (biology), tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at large ...

and its implications for the growth of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s (e.g.).

Biography

Early life

He was born on 23 December 1938 in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium. He obtained his first university degree in natural sciences from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

in 1960, and his doctorate in 1963. His thesis was supervised by Marcel Prenant, and focused on histology. He also did a larger "Doctorat d'état" (a degree that no longer exists but that was required at the time to supervise doctoral students or for academic advancement). That thesis was published as several papers in the Annales de Paléontologie.

Career

He worked in the University of Paris from 1961 (before completing his thesis, as was then customary in France) till 1995, when he was nominated to the Historical and Evolutionary Biology Chair of the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

. He officially retired in 2010, but he continues publishing. By the time that he retired, he had published 104 scientific papers and about 120 semi-popular papers. By 2010, his work had received at least 1575 ISI citations. Armand de Ricqlès initially worked on the functional significance of extant histodiversity, and applied this newly gained knowledge in paleobiological inferences. He has collaborated with several other histologists and paleontologists, including Timothy G. Bromage,

John R. Horner John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...

, and

Kevin Padian Kevin Padian (born 1951) is an American paleontologist. He is Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Curator of Paleontology, University of California Museum of Paleontology, and was President of the National ...

. In his career, he influenced several students, but he formally trained a single doctoral student,

Vivian de Buffrénil Vivian de Buffrénil is a French histologist and Paleobiology, paleobiologist who has worked at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris from 1982 to 2021. His doctorate (1980) and his doctorat d'état (1990), a diploma now replaced by ...

, who is currently working 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 ...

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 ...

. Through these collaborations, he has studied the growth, physiology, habitat (aquatic to terrestrial) and other paleobiological aspects of various limbed

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s. He has also made some contributions to the history of bone histology, and has written some papers on the problems facing French scientists because of the infamous French

bureaucracy Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricqles, Armand de 1938 births Living people French paleontologists University of Paris alumni