Jean René Constant Quoy
Quick Facts
ScorpioBiography
Jean René Constant Quoy (10 November 1790 in Maillé – 4 July 1869 in Rochefort) was a French naval surgeon, zoologist and anatomist.
In 1806, he began his medical studies at the school of naval medicine at Rochefort, afterwards serving as an auxiliary-surgeon on a trip to the Antilles (1808–09). After earning his medical doctorate in 1814 at Montpellier, he was surgeon-major on a journey to Réunion (1814–15).
Along with Joseph Paul Gaimard, he served as naturalist and surgeon aboard the Uranie under Louis de Freycinet from 1817 to 1820, and on the Astrolabe (1826-1829) under the command of Jules Dumont d'Urville. Along with his skills as a naturalist, he was acclaimed for his work as an artist. On the Astrolabe expedition, Quoy and Gaimard discovered the now extinct giant skink of Tonga (Tachygia microlepis).
In 1824, he was appointed professor of anatomy at the Rochefort Naval School, where from 1832 to 1835, he was a professor of medicine. He then continued his career at naval hospitals in Toulon (1835-1837) and in Brest (1838-1848), afterwards being chosen inspector general of the Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (serving from 1848 to 1858).
Taxonomy
The following genera or species were named in his honor:
- Cracticus quoyi Lesson, 1827 – the black butcherbird
- Quoya Labbé, 1934 – a genus of sea slugs
- Quoyia A. Gray, 1839 – a genus of extinct marine gastropods
- Terebra quoygaimardi Cernohorsky, 1976 – a species of sea snail
- Pilumnus quoyi H. Milne-Edwards, 1834 – a species of crab
- Ischnochiton quoyanus J. Thiele, 1910 – a species of chiton
- Eulamprus quoyii A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839 – a species of skink
- Quoya Gaudich. – a genus of Australian plants
Writings
- Voyage autour du monde … pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820. (with Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet, Joseph Paul Gaimard, Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré, et al.).
- Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe exécuté par ordre du Roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829 sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d'Urville. (with Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d'Urville, J Tastu and Joseph Paul Gaimard).