Jacques Berlioz

Jacques Berlioz ( born December 9, 1891 in Paris, † December 21, 1975 ) was a French zoologist.

Life and work

Berlioz was the great-nephew of the French composer Hector Berlioz. He had already become interested in his childhood for collecting rocks, plants, insects and birds. After studying medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry in 1917, he became in 1920 assistant in the Department of birds and mammals at the Muséum national d' Histoire naturelle. In 1927 he became assistant curator and chief curator in 1949. He continued in this position until 1962. Additionally, he received the title of professor in 1949. Berlioz was especially fascinated by hummingbirds, about which he has published several professional articles. Berlioz shared a deep friendship with the bird and insect collector Eugène Simon and when Simon died in 1924 he bequeathed the Muséum national d' Histoire naturelle his library and considerable Hummingbird Collection. 1950 Berlioz wrote important chapters on the taxonomy, distribution and migration of birds in the Encyclopedia Traité de Zoologie. Berlioz described (sometimes together with zoologist Jean Delacour as Gran or Guillaume Didier ) several Vogeltaxa, including the times alleys Crake, the Witwentangare, the edge vocalist, silver fillet tyrant, the yellow-eyed - Drongoschnäpper and Braunstirnnewtonie. He was an officer of the Legion of Honor and an honorary member of the American Ornithologists ' Union, the British Ornithologists ' Union, the German Ornithological Society, the Zoological Society of London and the Société Ornitholoque de France.

Sidney Dillon Ripley in 1965 named the Sokotrasegler (Apus berliozi ) by Jacques Berlioz.

Works (selection)

• La vie des oiseaux. 1931
• Les migration animales. Insectes, poissons oiseaux, mammifères. 1942
• La vie des colibris. 1944
• Oiseaux de la Réunion. 1946
• Petit atlas des oiseaux. 4 volumes, 1953