Charles Jean-Baptiste Amyot


Charles Jean-Baptiste Amyot was a French lawyer and entomologist especially interested in the Hemiptera.
After his father died, Amyot lived with a neighbor, a wealthy merchant, who was also an entomologist, Jean Guillaume Audinet-Serville. They become life-long friends, and Audinet-Serville advised Amyot to specialize in the Hemiptera, which at the time was being ignored by serious entomologists.
In 1822, Amyot became a lawyer, but he continued to study the Hemiptera. In 1833, he published a work on civil law, Institutes, ou Principes des lois civiles. In 1843, together with Audinet-Serville, he published Histoire naturelle des insectes hémiptères. Amyot was also interested in applied entomology and wrote several publications devoted to insect pests and how to fight them.
Amyot later became the president of the Entomological Society of France, where he argued for his monomial nomenclature for classification purposes, to the point where his fellow members withheld the honorary membership usually awarded to past presidents.

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