René Jeannel


René Jeannel was a French entomologist. He was director of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle from 1945 to 1951. Jeannel's most important work was on the insect fauna of caves in the Pyrenees, France and in the Carpathians, Romania. He also worked in Africa. Jeannel specialised in Leiodidae but authored a large number of papers and works on other Coleoptera. He was a member of the Romanian Academy.
As the son of a medical officer in the French military, Jeannel was expected to succeed his father. However, after developing an interest, during his studies in Toulouse, in cave exploration and especially cave fauna, he began considering a career in biological science instead. His interest was especially stimulated when he discovered two new cave beetles in the Grotte d’Oxibar, he had already produced more than 30 papers. During the rest of his career, he added another 500 scientific publications to this total, together amounting to more than 20,000 published pages—mostly on cave insects and all illustrated by himself.
Jeannel's most important contribution to taxonomy was the fact that he realised the potential of using the genitalia for species identification and classification. Genitalia evolve faster than external parts of the body and therefore the differences between species are greater. In his book l’Édéage, he summarized all the insights the study of the aedeagus had afforded him.

Works