Marie Jules César Savigny

Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny (5 April 1777 – 5 October 1851) was a French zoologist.

Savigny was born at Provins. In 1798 he travelled to Egypt with the Emperor Napoleon as part of the French scientific expedition to that country, and contributed to the publication of the findings of the expedition in 1809 (Description de l'Égypte; published more fully in 1822). He wrote about the fauna in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. He is also known for proposing a theory that the mouth-parts of insects are homologous with locomotory organs (e.g. legs).

Education and travel to Egypt
At age 16, Savigny traveled from his home of Provins, in the department of Seine et Marne, to Paris to finish his studies. Being very interested in botany, he worked at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Cuvier suggested to Napoleon that the 21-year-old Savigny should follow him as zoologist to Egypt. Savigny became responsible for studying invertebrates, while Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire took care of the vertebrates. After returning to Paris, in 1802, Savigny started to work on the large collections from Egypt, producing a number of manuscripts and plates.  In 1805 he published Histoire naturelle et mythologique de l'ibis (Natural and mythological history of the ibis).

As a botanist he described the genus Bruguiera (Savigny in Lam. 1798)  and dozens of plant species.

Later years
By 1817, Savigny's eyesight had deteriorated, and he had to stop working for a number of years. Between 1816 and 1820 he published the important Mémoires sur les animaux sans vertèbres (Memoires on the animals without vertebrae).  After returning to work in 1822, his eyesight continued to worsen, and by 1824 he became more-or-less blind, with terrible "optical hallucinations." Victor Audouin offered to complete Savigny's work but Savigny refused to part with the original artwork. Savigny was elected member of the Academy of Science on July 30, 1821.

Species and genera named for Savigny

Genera
Savignya DC.
Savignyella DC.
Savignia Blackwall, 1833

Species
Acanthodactylus savignyi Audouin, 1809
Anachis savignyi Moazzo, 1939
Ciona savignyi Herdman, 1882
Diadema savignyi (Audouin, 1809)
Goniopora savignyi (Dana, 1846)
Hyla savignyi Audouin, 1827
Leptochelia savignyi (Krøyer, 1842)
Loimia savignyi M'Intosh, 1885
Microcosmus savignyi Monniot, 1962
Ophiactis savignyi J. Müller & Troschel
Planaxis savignyi Deshayes, 1844
Pusia savignyi (Payraudeau, 1826)
Sepia savignyi H. de Blainville, 1827
Siderastrea savignyana H. Milne Edwards & Haime, 1850
Dynamenella savignii H. Milne Edwards, 1840
Thais savignyi (Deshayes, 1844)
Trapelus savignii A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1837
Trididemnum savignii (Herdman, 1886)

Synonyms and rejected names
Savignya Desor, 1855
Vexillum savignyi (Payraudeau, 1826)

References

External links 
 Marie-Jules-César Lelorgne de Savigny (1777-1851) Archives Départementales de Seine-et-Marne (biography in French) 

Category:1777 births
Category:1851 deaths
Category:People from Provins
Category:Commission des Sciences et des Arts members
Category:French ornithologists
Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
Category:National Museum of Natural History (France) people