Claude Jourdan (18 June 1803, in Heyrieux – 12 February 1873, in Lyon) was a French zoologist and paleontologist.

Claude Jourdan
Born(1803-06-18)June 18, 1803
DiedFebruary 12, 1873(1873-02-12) (aged 69)
NationalityFrench
Scientific career
FieldsZoology
paleontology
InstitutionsUniversity of Lyon

In Lyon he was a professor of zoology to the Faculté des sciences, and a professor of comparative anatomy at the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1832 to 1869 he was director of the Musée d'histoire naturelle - Guimet in Lyons.[1][2]

As a zoologist, he conducted studies of living and extinct vertebrates, including Proboscidea (elephants and their ancestors). In 1840–48 he is credited with uncovering 2000 fossils at various excavation sites in France.[2] As a taxonomist, he described Acerodon, a genus of Old World fruit bats, and Hemigalus, a monospecific genus associated with the banded palm civet, Hemigalus derbyanus. He also classified the following mammal species:

In 1839 Jules Bourcier named the rufous-shafted woodstar, Chaetocercus jourdanii, after him. It is sometimes referred to as "Jourdan's woodstar".[4]

Published works edit

  • Mémoire sur un nouveau genre de Lémurien. 1834.
  • Mémoires sur deux mammifères nouveaux de l'Inde, 1837.
  • Mémoires sur un rongeur fossile des calcaires d'eau douce du centre de la France, 1837.
  • Mémoire sur cinq mammifères nouveaux, 1837.
  • Note géologique et paléontologique sur une partie de l'Ardèche.
  • Descriptions de restes fossiles de deux grands mammifères des terrains sidérolitiques.
  • Description d'ossements de l'Ormenalurus agilis, 1866.[5]

References edit

  1. ^ Annales ..., Volumes 50-52 by Société linnéenne de Lyon, Amédée Bonnet
  2. ^ a b Jourdan, Claude (1803-après 1869) Compléments historiographiques, Biographies
  3. ^ Taxon author: Jourdan, 1837 ITIS Search Results
  4. ^ The Eponym Dictionary of Birds by Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson
  5. ^ Mémoires by Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts, Lyon. Classe des sciences