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Latreille, Pierre André (1762-1833)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Pierre André Latreille (November 20, 1762 - February 6, 1833) was a French entomologist. His works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today.
Latreille was born into a humble family of Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corrèze, and in 1778 entered the College Lemoine in Paris. He was ordained a priest in 1786 and then went back to Brive, where he spent all of his free time studying insects. In 1788 he returned to Paris and became active in the scientific community there, his Mémoire sur les mutilles découvertes en France gaining him admission to the Society for Natural History.
As a priest with conservative leanings, the French Revolution made his situation uncomfortable; he left Paris, and was later imprisoned at Bordeaux. In 1796 he published Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel at Brive. He was rearrested in 1797 but again released.[1]
In 1798 he was given the task of arranging the entomological collection at the recently organized Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris; in 1814 he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences (succeeding G. A. Olivier), and in 1821 he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He was professor of zoology in the veterinary school at Alfort near Paris, and in 1830, when the chair of zoology of invertebrates at the Museum was divided after the death of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Latreille was appointed professor of zoology of crustaceans, arachnids and insects, the chair of molluscs, worms and zoophytes being assigned to Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville.
The crab genus Latreillia (family Latreilliidae) is named in his honour.
Primary location of author's collection: Musee National d'Histoire Naturelle.
TAXONOMIC PUBLICATIONS
- Latreille, P.A. 1798. Essai sur l'histoire des fourmis de la France. Brive: F. Bourdeaux, 50 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1802. Histoire naturelle des fourmis, et recueil de mémoires et d'observations sur les abeilles, les araignées, les faucheurs, et autres insectes. Paris: Impr. Crapelet (chez T. Barrois), xvi + 445 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1802. Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des Crustacés et des insectes. Tome 3. Familles naturelles des genres. Paris: F. Dufart, xii + 467 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1802. Description d'une nouvelle espèce de fourmi. Bull. Sci. Soc. Philomath. Paris 3: 65-66.
- Latreille, P.A. 1803. Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des Crustacés et des insectes. Tome 5. Paris: F. Dufart, 406 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1804. Tableau méthodique des insectes. Pp. 129-200 in: Société de Naturalistes et d'Agriculteurs. Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle. Tome 24. Paris: Déterville, 84 + 85 + 238 + 18 + 34 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1809. Genera crustaceorum et insectorum secundum ordinem naturalem in familias disposita, iconibus exemplisque plurimus explicata. Tomus 4. Parisiis et Argentorati [= Paris and Strasbourg]: A. Koenig, 399 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1810. Considérations générales sur l'ordre natural des animaux composant les classes des Crustacés, des Arachnides et des Insectes; avec un tableau méthodique de leurs genres, disposés en familles. Paris: F. Schoell, 444 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1817a. Fourmi. Pp. 51-100 in: Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle. Nouvelle édition. Tome XII. Paris: Déterville, 608 pp.
- Latreille, P.A. 1818. Oecodome. P. 50 in: Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle. Nouvelle édition. Tome XXIII. Paris: Déterville, 612 pp.
REFERENCE
- Konishi, M.1991. Insectarium 28: 361, portrait.