François-Louis Nompar de Caumont Laporte, comte de Castelnau (born François-Louis Nompar de Caumont La Force; 24 December 1802[nb 1] – 4 February 1880)[1] was a French
naturalist, known also as François Laporte or Francis de Castelnau. The standard author abbreviation Castelnau is used to indicate him when citing a botanical name[2] and zoological names other than insects. Laporte is typically used when citing an insect name,[3] or Laporte de Castelnau.[4]
Life
Born in London, Castelnau studied
natural history in Paris. From 1837 to 1841 he traveled in the United States,
Texas, and Canada. He visited Middle
Florida from November 1837 until March 1838, publishing "Essai sur la Floride du Milieu" in 1843. In Canada he studied the fauna of the Canadian lakes and the river systems of
Upper and
Lower Canada (roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of
Ontario and
Quebec) and of the United States.[5][6]
Castelnau, a French savant, was sent by
Louis Philippe, in 1843, with two
botanists and a
taxidermist, on an expedition to cross South America from
Rio de Janeiro to
Lima, following the watershed between the
Amazon and
La Plata river systems, and thence to
Pará. He was gone for five years, with the expedition lasting into 1847.[5] During the expedition, he also collected word lists of various indigenous South American languages, including
Bororoan languages[7] and
Guachi.[8]
In 1856-57, he visited the
Cape of Good Hope, travelling as far east as
Algoa Bay, and subsequently wrote a treatise on South African fish (1861).[9]
He served as the French consul in
Bahia in 1848; in
Siam sometime between 1856 and 1858, and in
Melbourne, Australia from 1864 to 1877.[5]
Hoax Australian fish
Through no fault of his own, Castelnau's name is attached to an Australian
hoax. "Ompax spatuloides", a supposed
ganoid fish said to have been discovered in 1872 and named by Castelnau, was a joke originally directed at
Karl Staiger, the director of the Brisbane Museum. Staiger forwarded a sketch and description of the made-up fish to Castelnau, who duly described it.[5]
Legacy
Castelnau is commemorated, among others, in the scientific names of:
Expédition dans les parties centrales de l'Amérique: histoire naturelle des insectes coléoptères, 1840.
with
Hippolyte Louis GoryHistoire naturelle et iconographie des insectes coléoptères, publiée par monographies séparées, quatre monographies dont la première semble être la seule signée par Laporte (quatre tomes et sept volumes, P. Duménil, Paris, 1837–1841).
Vues et souvenirs de l'Amérique du Nord, 1842.
"Essai sur la Floride du Milieu", Nouvelles Annales des Voyages et des Sciences Géographiques, IV, 1843.
Mémoires sur les poissons de l'Afrique australe, 1843.
^This is his true birth date, according to Evenhuis in 2012. Many biographies give his year of birth as either 1810 or 1812, and his birth date is commonly given as 25 December 1810.
References
^Evenhuis, N.L. (2012). "François-Louis Comte de Castelnau (1802–1880) and the mysterious disappearance of his original insect collection". Zootaxa. 3168: 53–63.
doi:
10.11646/zootaxa.3168.1.4.
^Castelnau, Comte de; Seymour, Arthur R.; Boyd, Mark F. (January 1948). "Essay on Middle Florida, 1837-1838 (Essai sur la Florida du Milieu)". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 26 (3): 199–255.
JSTOR30139699.
^Castelnau, Francis de. 1850-59. Expédition dan les parties centrales de l'Amérique du Sud : de Rio de Janeiro à Lima, et de Lima au Para exécutée par ordre du gouvernement français pendant les années 1843 à 1847, sous la direction de Francis de Castelnau. P. Bertrand. Paris
^Castelnau, Francis de 1850-1. Expédition dans les parties centrales de l’Amérique du Sud: de Rio de Janeiro á Lima, et de Lima au Para, executée par ordre du Gouvernement franais pendant les années 1843 á 1847. Histoire du Voyage, París: P. Bertrand, vol. 2 & 5.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.
ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Castelnau", p. 49).
Further reading
"Francis L. de Laporte, Comte de Castelnau," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, Aves: A Survey of the Literature of Neotropical Ornithology, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Libraries, 2011.