Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville, also known as F. E. Guerin, (12 October 1799, in

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

– 26 January 1874, in

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 ...

) 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 ...

Life and work

Guérin-Méneville changed his

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

from Guérin in 1836. He was the author of the illustrated work ''Iconographie du Règne Animal de G. Cuvier 1829–1844'', a complement to the work of the zoologists

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 ...

and

Pierre André Latreille Pierre André Latreille (; 29 November 1762 – 6 February 1833) was a French zoology, zoologist, specialising in arthropods. Having trained as a Roman Catholic priest before the French Revolution, Latreille was imprisoned, and only regained hi ...

, ''

Le Règne Animal ''Le Règne Animal'' () is the most famous work of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. It sets out to describe the natural structure of the whole of the animal, animal kingdom based on comparative anatomy, and its natural history. Cuvier divid ...

'', which illustrated only a selection of the animals covered. Cuvier was delighted with the work, saying that it would be very useful to readers, and that the illustrations were "as accurate as they were elegant". He also introduced

silkworm ''Bombyx mori'', commonly known as the domestic silk moth, is a moth species belonging to the family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of '' Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. Silkworms are the larvae of silk moths. The silkworm is of ...

s to France, so they could be bred for the production of silk. Guérin-Méneville founded several journals: ''Magasin de zoologie, d’anatomie comparée et de paléontologie'' (1830), ''Revue zoologique par la Société cuviérienne'' (1838), ''Revue et Magasin de zoologie pure et appliquée'' (1849), and ''Revue de sériciculture'' (1863). He was editor o
''Dictionnaire Pittoresque d’Histoire Naturelle''
published in Paris 1836–1839. Guérin-Méneville was elected president of the Société Entomologique de France for the year 1846.

Legacy

Guérin-Méneville is commemorated in the scientific names of dozens of genera and species of insects and other organisms, including at least one snake.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Guerin", p. 111).

Works

* Guérin-Méneville, Felix-Edouard. ''Iconographie du règne animal de G. Cuvier: ou, représentation d'aprés nature de l'une des espèces les plus remarquables, et souvent non encore figurées, de chaque genre d'amimaux. Avec un texte descriptif mis au courant de la science''. Paris: J. B. Baillière, 1829–1844. * Guérin-Méneville, Felix-Edouard (editor). ''Dictionnaire Pittoresque d’Histoire Naturelle'', Paris, 1836–1839.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guerin-Meneville, Felix Edouard French taxonomists 1799 births 1874 deaths French carcinologists French lepidopterists Scientists from Toulon 19th-century French zoologists Presidents of the Société entomologique de France