Théodore Louis Joseph-Pons d'Arnaud (1811-1884) was a French civil engineer, geographer and naturalist. In 1830 he was hired by the government of Egypt to work on irrigation projects. In 1840-41 he participated in an expedition raised by the Pasha of Egypt that searched (unsuccessfully) for the source of the White Nile. In 1841-42 he explored in the Sudan on an expedition led by Binbashi (Major) Selim, a Turkish officer in the Marine d'Alexandrie. Further voyages of exploration took him to Ethiopia and Yemen (1843) and the Sudan (1860).[1][2]
Théodore Louis Joseph-Pons d'Arnaud | |
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 Joseph-Pons-d'Arnaud | |
| Born | 29 May 1811 Sisteron |
| Died | 8 June 1884 Chatou |
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In 1844 d'Arnaud was awarded the Grande Médaille d'Or des Explorations (gold medal for exploration) by French Geographical Society. In 1856 he was appointed as a Lieutenant colonel in an Egyptian regiment.
D'Arnaud authored a book on the aquatic plants of the Upper Nile. Two bird species are named in his honour: D'Arnaud's barbet, an East African insectivorous bird, and the Grey-capped social weaver, Pseudonigrita arnaudi.[3][4]
References
edit- ^ d'Arnaud, Joseph (1842). "1e Lettre de M. d'Arnaud à M. Jomard, membre de l'Institut". Bulletin de la Société de géographie: 376–379. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
- ^ Castelli, E. (1984). "Origine des collections ethnographiques soudanaises dans les musées français (1800-1878)". Journal des Africanistes. 54 (1): 102. doi:10.3406/jafr.1984.2058. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
- ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2014). The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 341–342. ISBN 978-1-4729-0573-4.
- ^ Tvedt, Terje (2008). A bibliography on the River Nile (PDF). Bergen: BRIC Press. pp. 35, 338–339, 481. ISBN 978-82-7453-074-4. Retrieved 29 July 2021.