Françoise Beaucournu-Saguez (1936–11 August 2000) 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 specialized in blackfly research.

Biography

Beaucournu-Saguez published many studies on the blackflies ( simuliids) of

western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

from 1972 to 1992) with much of her research resulting from her personal fieldwork in France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco. According to an obituary,

It is to her that we owe the first discovery that the female of Simulium velutinum can be distinguished from that of other European species of the S. aureum group (= Eusimulium s. str.) by lacking the usual pigmented “nipple” on the spermatheca at the base of the duct1 - a character that has proved constant and very reliable for recognizing this species among otherwise inseparable females.

Her research was well known for her formal taxonomy of the

Palaearctic realm The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The ...

, especially her descriptions of Levitinia freidbergi from ephemeral streams on the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...

in Syria under Israeli Military Administration (done with Dr Yehuda Braverman who collected the studied specimens) Blackfly

In her later years, she worked in northwest France and was associated with the Department of Parasitology and Applied Zoology at the

University of Rennes The University of Rennes (French: ''Université de Rennes'') is a public university, public research university located in Rennes, Upper Brittany, France. Originally founded in 1460, the university was split into two universities in 1970: Univers ...

Private life

She was married to the

parasitologist Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question but by their way of life. This means it f ...

Jean-Claude Beaucournu (born 1934) who specialized in fleas (

Siphonaptera Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, are ...

) and who was a co-author on some of her blackfly research. Beaucournu-Saguez died on 11 August 2000.

Selected works

Her research is published under two different names: Beaucournu-Saguez, F., and Saguez, F. B. * *Bailly-Choumara, H., & Beaucournu-Saguez, F. (1978). Contribution à l’étude des simulies du Maroc (Diptera, Simuliidae). 1. Le Rif. ''Bulletin de l’Institut scientifique, Rabat'', ''3'', 121-144. *Beaucournu-Saguez, F., & Bailly-Choumara, H. (1981). Prosimulium (Prosimulium) laamii n. sp.(Nematocera, Simuliidae), simulie nouvelle du nord du Maroc. ''Cahiers ORSTOM (série Entomologie médicale et Parasitologie)'', ''19'', 113-119. *Noirtin, C., Boiteux, P., Guillet, P., Dejoux, C., Beaucournu-Saguez, F., & Mouchet, J. (1981). Les simulies, nuisance pour le bétail dans les Vosges: les origines de leur pullulation et les méthodes de lutte. ''Cahiers orstom, Série Entomologie Médicale et Parasitologie'', ''19'', 101-112. *Saguez, F. B., & Rivosecchi, L. (1982). CONTRIBUTO ALLA CONOSCENZA DEI SIMULIDI ITALIANI. XXIV: SULLA PRESENZA NELLE ALPI OCCIDENTALI (VAL D'AOSTA) DI UNA SPECIE DEL GEN. TWINNIA (SUBF. GYMNOPAIDINAE).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaucournu-Saguez, Françoise 1936 births 2000 deaths 20th-century French women French entomologists French women scientists 20th-century French scientists