The contribution of Edouard-Louis Trouessart to Mammalogy
Résumé
Edouard-Louis Trouessart (1842 – 1927) is one of the major figures of European mammalogy. He began his career in medical studies and completed his thesis of medicine in 1870 in Poitiers. In conjunction with his medical work, he was a naturalist and regularly frequented the Natural History Museum of Angers, where he eventually served as director from 1882 to 1885. Subsequently, he worked in the Museum of Natural History in Paris and became professor in 1906 upon the death of Emile Oustalet. He served as head of the Mammals and Birds section between 1906 and 1926, following Etienne and Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Henri Milne-Edwards, and Emile Oustalet. During his career, he published 266 scientific
and popular articles and named about 30 new species to science. Among his major works were a book on the fauna of France (1884), the fauna of European mammals (1910), the European Birds catalogue (1912), and a book devoted to biogeography. His Catalogue of Modern and Fossil
Mammals (1885), reedited three times, was considered one of the first references for mammalian classification and an early precursor of Simpson, McKenna and Bell ( Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level ), and Wilson and Reeder ( Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic
and Geographic Reference ). Trouessart was a systematist, and he made taxonomic classification his main aim. His impressive work at the interface between biology, palaeontology, and biogeography at the beginning of the 20th century is worthy of recognition.