Alcide Charles Victor Marie Dessalines d'Orbigny (6 September 1802 – 30 June 1857) was a French
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
who made major contributions in many areas, including
zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
(including
malacology),
palaeontology
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 geo ...
,
geology
Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...
,
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
and
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
.
D'Orbigny was born in
Couëron (
Loire-Atlantique), the son of a ship's physician and amateur naturalist. The family moved to
La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle'') is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime Departments of France, department. Wi ...
in 1820, where his interest in natural history was developed while studying the marine fauna and especially the microscopic creatures that he named "
foraminifera
Foraminifera ( ; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are unicellular organism, single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class (biology), class of Rhizarian protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell bio ...
ns".
In Paris he became a disciple of the geologist
Pierre Louis Antoine Cordier (1777–1861) and
Georges Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...
. All his life, he would follow the theory of Cuvier and stay opposed to
Lamarckism
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
.
South American era
D'Orbigny travelled on a mission for the Paris Museum, in South America between 1826 and 1833. He visited Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and returned to France with an enormous collection of more than 10,000 natural history specimens. He described part of his findings in ''La Relation du Voyage dans l'Amérique Méridionale pendant les années 1826 à 1833'' (Paris, 1824–47, in 90
fascicles). The other specimens were described by zoologists at the museum.
His contemporary,
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
, arrived in South America in 1832, and on hearing that he had been preceded, grumbled that D'Orbigny had probably collected "the cream of all the good things".
Darwin later called D'Orbigny's Voyage a "most important work".
They went on to correspond, with D'Orbigny describing some of Darwin's specimens.
He was awarded the
Gold Medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...
of the
Société de Géographie of Paris in 1834. The South American Paleocene
pantodont
Pantodonta is an extinct suborder (or, according to some, an order) of eutherian mammals. These herbivorous mammals were one of the first groups of large mammals to evolve (around 66 million years ago) after the end of the Cretaceous. The la ...
''
Alcidedorbignya'' was named in his honour.
1840 and later
In 1840, d'Orbigny started the methodical description of French
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
s and published ''La Paléontologie Française'' (8 vols). In 1849 he published a closely related ''Prodrome de Paléontologie Stratigraphique'', intended as a "Preface to Stratigraphic Palaeontology", in which he described almost 18,000 species, and with biostratigraphical comparisons erected
geological stages, the definitions of which rest on their stratotypes.
In 1853 he became professor of palaeontology at the Paris
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 ...
, publishing his ''Cours élémentaire'' that related
paleontology
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 ge ...
to
zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
, as a science independent of the uses made of it in
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 ...
. The chair of paleontology was created especially in his honor. The d'Orbigny collection is housed in the ''Salle d'Orbigny'' and is often visited by experts.
He described the geological timescales and defined numerous geological strata, still used today as
chronostratigraphic reference such as Toarcian, Callovian, Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian,
Aptian
The Aptian is an age (geology), age in the geologic timescale or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early or Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), S ...
,
Albian
The Albian is both an age (geology), age of the geologic timescale and a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch/s ...
and
Cenomanian
The Cenomanian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy's (ICS) geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or the lowest stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Cretace ...
. He died in the small town of
Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, near Paris.
Catastrophism
D'Orbigny, a disciple of Georges Cuvier, was a notable advocate of
catastrophism.
He recognized twenty-seven catastrophes in the
fossil record
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
.
[ Singer, Charles Joseph. (1931). ''The Story of Living Things: A Short Account of the Evolution of the Biological Sciences''. Harper & Bros. p. 232] This became known as the "doctrine of successive creations".
[ Prothero, Donald R. (2013). ''Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology''. Columbia University Press. p. 223. ] He attempted to reconcile the fossil record with the
Genesis creation narrative
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity, told in the book of Genesis chapters 1 and 2. While the Jewish and Christian tradition is that the account is one comprehensive story, modern scholars of ...
. Both
uniformitarian geologists and theologians rejected his idea of successive creations.
Palaeontologist
Carroll Lane Fenton has noted that his idea of twenty-seven world-wide creations was "absurd", even for creationists.
L. Sprague de Camp has written that "Alcide d'Orbigny, carried the idea to absurdity. Dragging in the supernatural, d'Orbigny argued that, on twenty-seven separate occasions, God had wiped out all life on earth and started over with a whole new creation."
Taxa
Several zoological and
botanical taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...
were named in his honor, including the following
genera
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...
and
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
.
*''
Alcidedorbignya'' – an extinct genus of
pantodont
Pantodonta is an extinct suborder (or, according to some, an order) of eutherian mammals. These herbivorous mammals were one of the first groups of large mammals to evolve (around 66 million years ago) after the end of the Cretaceous. The la ...
mammal
*''Alcidia''
Bourguignat, 1889 – a genus of
sea snail
Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...
s
*''
Ampullaria dorbignyana''
Philippi, 1851 – a species of
freshwater snail
Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks that live in fresh water. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs t ...
*''
Apostolepis dorbignyi''
Schlegel, 1837 – a species of burrowing snake
[Beolens et al.]
*''
Asthenes dorbignyi''
Reichenbach, 1853 - a species of
furnariid bird
*''
Bachia dorbignyi''
A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839 – a species of
lizard
Lizard is the common name used for all Squamata, squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most Island#Oceanic isla ...
[
*'' Cadomites orbignyi'' de Grossouvre, 1930 – a species of ]ammonite
Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...
s from the Bathonian
In the geologic timescale the Bathonian is an age (geology), age and stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Middle Jurassic. It lasted from approximately 168.2 ±1.2 annum, Ma to around 165.3 ±1.1 Ma (million years ago). The Bathonian Age succeeds ...
*'' Chaunus dorbignyi'' (A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1841) – a species of toad
*'' Haminoea orbignyana'' A. de Férussac, 1822 – a species of sea snail
*'' Hecticoceras (Orbignyceras)'' C. Gérard & H. Contaut, 1936 – a subgenus
In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...
of ammonite from the Callovian
*'' Liolaemus dorbignyi'' Koslowsky, 1898 – a species of lizard[
*'' Lystrophis dorbignyi'' A.M.C. Duméril, Bibron & A.H.A. Duméril, 1854 – a species of snake][
*''Nerocila orbignyi'' ( Guérin, 1832) – a species of ectoparasitic ]isopod
Isopoda is an Order (biology), order of crustaceans. Members of this group are called isopods and include both Aquatic animal, aquatic species and Terrestrial animal, terrestrial species such as woodlice. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons ...
*'' Orbignya'' Mart. ex Endl. – a genus of palm trees, which includes the species ''Orbignya speciosa'' (Mart. ex Spreng.), commonly known as the Brazilian palm tree or ''babaçu'' in Portuguese
*'' Pinna dorbignyi'' Hanley, 1858 – a species of bivalve
Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...
mollusc
Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...
*'' Potamotrygon orbignyi'' ( Castelnau, 1855) – a species of freshwater stingray
*'' Quadracythere orbignyana'' ( Bosquet, 1852) – a species of marine ostracod
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a Class (biology), class of the crustacean, Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 33,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant taxon, extant) have been identified,Brandão, S.N.; Antoni ...
*'' Rhinodoras dorbignyi'' ( Kner, 1855) – a species of thorny catfish
*'' Sepia (Rhombosepion) orbignyana'' A. de Férussac in d'Orbigny, 1826 – a species of cuttlefish
Cuttlefish, or cuttles, are Marine (ocean), marine Mollusca, molluscs of the order (biology), suborder Sepiina. They belong to the class (biology), class Cephalopoda which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique ...
, commonly known as the pink cuttlefish
*'' Subdiscosphinctes orbignyi'' Hantzpergue, 1987 – a species of ammonites from the Kimmeridgian[ Pierre Hantzpergue, ''Les ammonites kimméridgiennes du haut-fond d'Europe occidentale. Biochronologie, systématique, évolution, paléogéographie'', Cahiers de paléontologie, éditions du CNRS, 1989, ]
*'' Trachemys dorbigni'' – a species of freshwater turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...
In the above list, a taxon author or binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than the genus to which the species is currently assigned.
Publications
*
References
La Gazette des Français du Paraguay, Alcide d'Orbigny – Voyageur Naturaliste pour le Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle dans le Cone Sud – Alcide d'Orbigny – Viajero Naturalista para el Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Francia en el Cono Sur – Bilingue Français Espagnol – numéro 7, année 1, Asuncion Paraguay.
Further reading
* Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011)
''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("D'Orbigny", p. 74, "Orbigny", p. 195).
*Taylor, W. Thomas; Taylor, Michael L. (2011). "Alcide d'Orbignyi". ''Aves: A Survey of the Literature of Neotropical Ornithology''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Libraries. 156 pp. .
External links
*
*
Gallica
Digital versions of some d'Orbigny works. Search at ''Recherche''.
''Dictionnaire Universel d'Histoire Naturelle''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orbigny, Alcide
1802 births
1857 deaths
19th-century French zoologists
Catastrophism
Conchologists
Christian creationists
Critics of Lamarckism
French entomologists
French paleontologists
Teuthologists
National Museum of Natural History (France) people