Armand David
{{short description|Lazarist missionary Roman Catholic priest, zoologist, and botanist from the Basque Country, France}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}}
{{More citations needed|date=December 2018}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| type = Catholic priest
| honorific_prefix = The Reverend
| name = Armand David
| honorific_suffix = CM
| title =
| image = Armand David Berillon BNF Gallica.jpg
| church = Catholic Church
| ordination = 1851
| birth_name = Jean-Pierre-Armand David
| birth_date = {{birth date|1826|9|7|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Espelette, France
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1900|11|10|1826|9|7|df=yes}}
| death_place = Paris, France
| buried =
| religion = Roman Catholicism
| parents =
| occupation = Biologist
| module = {{Infobox scientist|child=yes
|fields = Botany, zoology
|other_names = Père David
|workplaces =
|doctoral_advisor =
|academic_advisors =
|doctoral_students =
|notable_students =
|known_for = Documenting species of Chinese flora and fauna exotic to Europe
|author_abbrev_bot = David
|author_abbrev_zoo = David
}}
}}
Armand David, CM (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris){{Cite web|author1=|title=Armand David (1826-1900)|url=https://data.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb15360031w|website=data.bnf.fr|publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France|accessdate=14 December 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20181214185331/https://data.bnf.fr/fr/15360031/armand_david/|archivedate=14 December 2018|location=Paris|language=fr|date=5 October 2018}} was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist from the French Basque Country.
Several species, such as Père David's deer, are named after him — {{lang|fr|Père David}} being French for Father David.
Biography
Image:Espelette WWF.jpg, with text in Basque, French and English.]]
Born in Espelette 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 1851, he was in 1862 sent to Peking, 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 community at Paris in April, 1888. He had found in China all together 200 species of wild animals, of which 63 were hitherto unknown to zoologists, and 807 species of birds, 65 of which had not been described before.{{CathEncy|wstitle=Armand David}} He made a large collection of reptiles, amphibians, and fishes and handed it over to specialists for further study. Also, a large number of moths and insects, many of them hitherto unknown, were brought to the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. What Father David's scientific journeys meant for botany may be inferred from the fact that among the rhododendrons which he collected no less than fifty-two new species were found and among the primulae about forty, while the Western Mountains of China furnished an even greater number of hitherto unknown species of gentian.
The most notable of the animals 'found' by David, which were hitherto unknown to Europeans, were the giant panda in Baoxing County and Père David's deer. The latter had disappeared with the exception of a few preserved in the gardens of the emperor of China, but David succeeded in securing a specimen and sent it to Europe. David also sent back the first emerald ash borer specimen.{{cite news|last=Miller |first=Matthew |title=Battle of the Ash Borer: Decades after Beetles Arrived in Michigan, Researchers Looking to Slow Devastation |url=http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/interactive/article/20140727/NEWS01/307270001/Battle-ash-borer-Decades-after-beetles-arrived-Michigan-researchers-looking-slow-devastation |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140801175724/http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/interactive/article/20140727/NEWS01/307270001/Battle-ash-borer-Decades-after-beetles-arrived-Michigan-researchers-looking-slow-devastation |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 August 2014|work=Lansing State Journal|accessdate=20 August 2014}} In the midst of his work as a naturalist Father David did not neglect his missionary labours, and was noted for his careful devotion to his religious duties and for his obedience to every detail of his order's rules.
{{botanist|David|David, Armand}}
Eponymy
The plants Buddleja davidii and Ulmus davidiana, the David Elm, were named for him,{{cite news|title= Urban Perennial|newspaper= The Big Issue|first= Ben |last= Dark|date= 4 April 2022|page= 39}} and also Lilium davidii. The fish Sarcocheilichthys davidi was named in his honor by Henri Émile Sauvage in 1878, because Père David collected the type specimen.{{cite web | url = http://www.etyfish.org/cypriniformes14/ | title = Order CYPRINIFORMES: Families ACHEILOGNATHIDAE, GOBIONIDAE and TANICHTHYIDAE | access-date = 3 March 2021 | author1 = Christopher Scharpf | author2 = Kenneth J. Lazara | name-list-style = amp | work = The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database | publisher = Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara | date = 22 September 2018 | archive-date = 29 September 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190929065546/http://www.etyfish.org/cypriniformes14/ | url-status = dead }} Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) was likewise named after him by Alphonse Milne-Edwards.
Père David's Rat Snake (Elaphe davidi) was named in his honor by Henri Émile Sauvage in 1884.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Père David", p. 203).
See also
=Catholic missionaries in China=
=Eponymous taxa=
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{Catholic Encyclopedia|wstitle=Armand David|first=James J.|last=Walsh}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20090911223351/http://www.vincentians.org.au/Studies/ScottBDavid.pdf Père Jean Pierre Armand David CM], a biography by Bernard Scott
{{Christianity in Sichuan}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:David, Armand}}
Category:19th-century French botanists
Category:Botanists active in China
Category:19th-century French zoologists
Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in Sichuan
Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in China
Category:Catholic clergy scientists
Category:Zoological collectors
Category:French missionaries in China