Père David
| Armand David | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 7, 1826 Ezpeleta, France |
| Died | November 10, 1900 (aged 74) Paris, France |
| Other names | Père David |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany, zoology |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | David |
Father Armand David (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris), also known in common names by the French Père David, was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist.
Born in Ezpeleta near Bayonne, in the north of Basque Country, in Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France, he entered the Congregation of the Mission in 1848, having already displayed great fondness for the natural sciences. Ordained in 1862, he was shortly afterwards sent to Beijing, where he began a collection of material for a museum of natural history, mainly zoological, but in which botany, geology, and palaeontology were also well represented.
At the request of the French government, important specimens from his collection were sent to Paris and aroused the greatest interest. The Jardin des Plantes commissioned him to undertake scientific journeys through China to make further collections. He succeeded in obtaining many specimens of hitherto unknown animals and plants, and the value of his comprehensive collections for the advance of systematic zoology and especially for the advancement of animal geography received universal recognition from the scientific world.
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