Félix Biet, MEP (1838 in

Langres Langres () is a commune in France, commune in northeastern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Departments of France, department of Haute-Marne, in the Regions of France, region of Grand Est. History As the capital ...

Haute-Marne Haute-Marne (; English: Upper Marne) is a department in the Grand Est region of Northeastern France. Named after the river Marne, its prefecture is Chaumont. In 2019, it had a population of 172,512.Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d'Or Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d'Or (; Arpitan: ''Sant-Ciro-en-Mont-Tor'') or simply Saint-Cyr is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, central-eastern France. It is a northern suburb of Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal ...

) was a

French Catholic The Catholic Church in France, Gallican Church, or French Catholic Church, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. Established in the 2nd century in unbroken communion with the bishop of Rome, it was sometim ...

prelate who served as the Apostolic Vicar of Tibet from 1878 to 1901. He was a member of the

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (, , MEP) is a Catholic Missionary order, missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular clergy, secular priests and Laity, lay persons dedicated to missionary wo ...

and also a

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 ...

Life

Biet was born in 1838. He was ordained as a priest in 1864. He was next sent to

Tatsienlu Kangding ( zh, c=康定), also known as Dartsedo (), is a county-level city and the seat of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province of Southwest China. Kangding is on the bank of the Dadu River and has been considered the histor ...

in Tibet (called Dartsedo by Tibetans) as a missionary and he became the Bishop of the

Apostolic Vicariate An apostolic vicariate is a territorial jurisdiction of the Catholic Church under a titular bishop centered in missionary regions and countries where dioceses or parishes have not yet been established. The status of apostolic vicariate is often ...

Thibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

, now Diocese of Kangding, in 1898. Félix Biet collected

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

for Charles Oberthür who dedicated three new species ('' Thecla bieti'', '' Pantoporia bieti'' and '' Anthocharis bieti'') to him.

Alphonse Milne-Edwards Alphonse Milne-Edwards (Paris, 13 October 1835 – Paris, 21 April 1900) was a French mammalogist, ornithologist, and carcinologist. He was English in origin, the son of Henri Milne-Edwards and grandson of Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter who ...

described the

Chinese mountain cat The Chinese mountain cat (''Felis bieti''), also known as Chinese desert cat and Chinese steppe cat, is a small wild '' Felis'' species with sand-coloured fur, faint dark stripes on the face and legs and black tipped ears. It is endemic to the ...

(''

Felis bieti The Chinese mountain cat (''Felis bieti''), also known as Chinese desert cat and Chinese steppe cat, is a small wild ''Felis'' species with sand-coloured fur, faint dark stripes on the face and legs and black tipped ears. It is endemic to the Ti ...

'') and the

black snub-nosed monkey The black-and-white snub-nosed monkey (''Rhinopithecus bieti''), also known as the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, is a large black and white primate that lives only in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, where it is known to the locals as the Yu ...

, (''

Rhinopithecus bieti The black-and-white snub-nosed monkey (''Rhinopithecus bieti''), also known as the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, is a large black and white primate that lives only in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, where it is known to the locals as the Yu ...

''), the latter collected and sent by

Jean-André Soulié Jean-André is a French masculine given name. It may refer to: * Jean-André Cuoq (1821–1898), French philologist * Jean-André Deluc (1727–1817), Swiss geologist and meteorologist * Jean-André Mongez (1750–1788), French priest and miner ...

. The Biet's laughingthrush a Chinese

endemic species Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

was another discovery, named by

Émile Oustalet Jean-Frédéric Émile Oustalet (24 August 1844 – 23 October 1905) was a French zoologist who contributed greatly to ornithology. Oustalet was born at Montbéliard, in the department of Doubs (department), Doubs. He studied at the Ecole des Hau ...

in 1897. Those natural history collections from

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

are in the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

in Paris. He was succeeded by Pierre-Philippe Giraudeau.

References

*Adrien Launay (1916), '' Mémorial de la Société des missions étrangères'' *Françoise Fauconnet-Buzelin (2012), ''Les Martyrs oubliés du Tibet. Chronique d'une rencontre manquée (1855-1940)'', éd. du Cerf, coll. Petit Cerf, Paris, 2012, 656 pages {{DEFAULTSORT:Biet, Felix 1838 births 1901 deaths People from Langres French entomologists French ornithologists French Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Tibet French expatriates in Tibet Roman Catholic missionaries in Sichuan Paris Foreign Missions Society missionaries French expatriates in China Roman Catholic Diocese of Kangding

Life

See also

References