Francis de Laporte de Castelnau


François Louis Nompar de Caumont La Force, comte de Castelnau was a French naturalist, known also as François Laporte or Francis de Castelnau., and zoological names other than insects. However, Laporte is typically used when citing an insect name, or Laporte de Castelnau.

Life

Born in London, Castelnau studied natural history in Paris. From 1837 to 1841 he led a scientific expedition to Canada, where he studied the fauna of the Canadian lakes and the river systems of Upper and Lower Canada and of the United States.
Castelnau, a French savant, was sent by Louis Philippe, in 1843, with two botanists and a taxidermist, on an expedition to cross South America from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, following the watershed between the Amazon and La Plata river systems, and thence to Pará. He was gone for five years. In 1856-57 he visited the Cape of Good Hope, travelling as far east as Algoa Bay, and subsequently wrote a treatise on South African fish.
He served as the French consul in Bahia in 1848; in Siam from 1848 until 1862, and in Melbourne, Australia from 1864 to 1877.

Hoax Australian fish

Through no fault of his own, Castelnau's name is attached to an Australian hoax. "Ompax spatuloides ", a supposed ganoid fish said to have been discovered in 1872 and named by Castelnau, was a joke originally directed at Karl Staiger, the director of the Brisbane Museum. Staiger forwarded a sketch and description of the made-up fish to Castelnau, who duly described it.

Legacy

Castelnau is commemorated, among others, in the scientific name of a species of Australian gecko, Oedura castelnaui,, of a species of ground beetle, Megacephala castelnaui, a species of scarab beetle, Hybosorus laportei, an aphid Cinara laportei, and of the spotback skate, Atlantoraja castelnaui.

Works