Claude Jourdan  Claude Jourdan (18 June 1803, in Heyrieux – 12 February 1873, in Lyon) was a French zoologist and paleontologist. In Lyon he was a professor of zoology to the Faculté des sciences, and a professor of comparative anatomy at the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1832 to 1869 he was director of the Musée d'histoire naturelle - Guimet in Lyons. As a zoologist, he conducted studies of living and extinct vertebrates, including Proboscidea (elephants and their ancestors). In 1840–48 he is credited with uncovering 2000 fossils at various excavation sites in France. As a taxonomist, he described "Acerodon", a genus of Old World fruit bats, and "Hemigalus", a monospecific genus associated with the banded palm civet, "Hemigalus derbyanus". He also classified the following mammal species: In 1839 Jules Bourcier named the rufous-shafted woodstar, "Chaetocercus jourdanii", after him. It is sometimes referred to as "Jourdan's woodstar".