Residence France Fields Entomology Name Guillaume-Antoine Olivier | Nationality French Citizenship France | |
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Born 19 January 1756 ( 1756-01-19 ) Died October 1, 1814, Lyon, France Books Travels in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Persia, Undertaken by Order of the Government of France, During the First Six Years of the Republic | ||
Guillaume-Antoine Olivier (19 January 1756, Toulon – 1 October 1814, Lyon) was a French entomologist.
Contents
Life
Olivier studied medicine in Montpellier, where he became good friends with Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet. With Jean Guillaume Bruguière and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, he collaborated in the creation of Journal d'Histoire Naturelle (1792). Afterwards, he served as a naturalist on a 6-year scientific journey that took him to Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, Cyprus and Corfu. He returned to France in 1798 with a large collection of natural history specimens from his travels. Later, he was associated with the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort, where in 1811, he was appointed professor of zoology. Olivier was a close friend of Johan Christian Fabricius and a patron of Pierre André Latreille.
Although primarily an entomologist, Olivieri also worked in the scientific field of herpetology, describing several new species of Asian lizards.
Works
Olivier was the author of Coléoptères Paris Baudouin 1789 -1808 (11 editions), Entomologie, ou histoire naturelle des Insectes (1808) and Le Voyage dans l'Empire Othoman, l'Égypte et la Perse (1807). He was a contributor to Encyclopédie Méthodique.
Legacy
Today, most of his collection is housed at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
A species of lizard, Mesalina olivieri, is named in his honor.