Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest

Who was Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest?

Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest was a French zoologist and author. He was the son of Nicolas Desmarest and father of Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest. Desmarest was a disciple of Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, and in 1815, he succeeded Pierre André Latreille to the professorship of zoology at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort. In 1820 he was elected to the Académie Nationale de Médecine.

Desmarest published Histoire Naturelle des Tangaras, des Manakins et des Todiers, Considérations générales sur la classe des crustacés, Mammalogie ou description des espèces des Mammifères and Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles.

The brown algae Desmarestia is named in honour of Desmarest, as well as the family — and in turn, the order — of which the genus is the type species.