(François-Louis) Paul GERVAIS

Birthdate: September 26, 1816

Birthplace: Paris

Died: February 10, 1879, Paris

BIOGRAPHY: Paul Gervais (September 26, 1816 - February 10, 1879) was a French palaeontologist.
Gervais was born at Paris, where he obtained the diplomas of doctor of science and of medicine, and in 1835 he began palaeontological research as assistant in the laboratory of comparative anatomy at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle . In 1841 he obtained the chair of zoology and comparative anatomy at the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier, of which he was in 1856 appointed dean. In 1848-1852 appeared his important work Zoologie et paléontologie françaises, supplementary to the palaeontological publications of Georges Cuvier and Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville; of this a second and greatly improved edition was issued in 1859. In 1865 he accepted the professorship of zoology at the Sorbonne, vacant through the death of Louis Pierre Gratiolet; this post he left in 1868 for the chair of comparative anatomy at the Paris museum of natural history, the anatomical collections of which were greatly enriched by his exertions.
He also wrote Histoire naturelle des insectes (4 vols., 1836-1847with Charles Athanase Walckenaer) ; Histoire naturelle des Mammifères (1853); Zoologie médicale (1859, with Pierre-Joseph van Beneden); Recherches sur l'ancienneté de l'homme et la période quaternaire (1867); Zoologie et Paléontologie générales (1867); Ostéographie des cétacés vivants et fossiles (1869, &c., with van Beneden).