Name Philippe Dautzenberg Role Author | Died May 9, 1935 | |
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Philippe Dautzenberg (Ixelles, Brussels, 20 December 1849 – Paris, 9 May 1935) was a Belgian malacologist, a biologist who specializes in the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with mollusks. He was an amateur and autodidact, who was actually the owner of a carpet and soft furnishings factory. He was also a devoted family man with 12 children.
He assembled, thanks to his many connections all over the world, a large part of the shell collection of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, which consists of 9,000,000 specimens and is one of the three largest shell collections in the world.
He was a participant in the scientific surveys of Prince Albert I of Monaco and the author of 210 published works (between 1881 and 1937 (post mortem) )in the field of malacology. He described 1895 new taxa. He collected shells from an early age, resulting in his personal collection of about 4.5 million specimens, relating to 33,000 Recent taxa and 7,000 fossil species. He referenced 82,000 specimens on filing cards.
He belonged to several scientific societies in Belgium and France, including the Société royale malacologique de Belgique, Société linnéenne de Lyon (1921–1935) and the Société d'histoire naturelle de l'Afrique du Nord (1926). In 1892 he was named president of the Société zoologique de France.