Alfred Duvaucel (French pronunciation:[alfʁɛddyvosɛl]; 4 February 1793,Bièvres, Essonne – 1824,Madras,India) was a Frenchnaturalist andexplorer. He was the stepson ofGeorges Cuvier and travelled in India and Southeast Asia as a collector of specimens for the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Duvaucel was born in Bièvres just outside Paris to nobleman Louis Philippe Alexandre Du Vaucel, Marquis de Castelnau (1749–1794) and Anne Marie Sophie Coquet du Trazail (1764–1849). His father was a revenue collector for the king and was guillotined during theFrench Revolution in 1794. Two years later his mother marriedGeorges Cuvier who adopted her children Alfred, Thélème (1788–1809),Antoinette Sophie Laure (1789–1867) and Martial (1794–1871), and instilled an interest in natural history in them. He was the youngest and he was closest to his sister Sophie, with Alfred and Martial dying young. Three of the children of Cuvier died in infancy. Duvaucel served briefly in military service in 1813, posted to Antwerp in 1814 as aide-de-camp to General Lazare Carnot, and resigned from it. In 1817 he was appointed as a naturalist to the King (Naturaliste du Roi). In December 1817, Duvaucel left Le Havre, France aboard theSeine under Captain Houssard forBritish India and arrived inCalcutta in May 1818, where he metPierre-Médard Diard.^[1] Together, they moved toChandernagore, then a trading post of theFrench East India Company, and started collecting animals and plants for theParis Museum of Natural History. In their letters Diard and Duvaucel note the difficulties in employing Indians for work due to the restrictions of the caste system. The finally managed to get their cook to hunt, the gatekeeper to care for the garden, and for the server to catch fish for them. They employed hunters who supplied them daily with live and dead specimens, which they described, drew and classified. They also received objects from localrajahs and went hunting themselves. In the garden of their compound, they cultivated local plants and keptwater birds in a basin. In June 1818, they sent their first consignment to Paris, containing a skeleton of aGanges river dolphin, a head of a"Tibetan ox", various species of little-known birds, some mineral samples and a drawing of atapir from Sumatra that they had studied inHastings'menagerie. Later consignments included a liveCashmere goat, crested pheasants and various birds.^[2][3]

In December 1818,Thomas Stamford Raffles invited them to accompany him on his journeys and pursue their collections in places where he would have to go officially. He offered to establish a menagerie in hisBencoulen residence. By end of December, they left with him on the basis they would equally share the collected animals. InPulo-Pinang, they collected two new fish species and some birds. InAchem, they collected only a few plants, insects, birds, snakes, fish and two deer. InMalacca, they bought a bear, anargus and some other birds. InSingapore, they obtained adugong, of which they prepared drawings and a description that Raffles sent to theRoyal Society. These were published in 1820 byEverard Home and planned for publication in theHistoire naturelle des mammifères byÉtienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire andFrédéric Cuvier. After their arrival at Bencoulen in August 1819, Raffles requisitioned most of their collection and left them copies of their drawings, descriptions and notes. Duvaucel and Diard took leave, sent their share to Calcutta and parted.^[2]

Duvaucel set off toPadang, and collected specimens of theMalayan tapir,Sumatran rhinoceros, several monkeys, reptiles, deer andaxis in this area. He returned to Calcutta with several cases of stuffed animals, skeletons, skins and some live monkeys.^[2]

He returned to Chandernagore, from where he made several excursions. In July 1821, he embarked on theHooghly River, visited the cities ofHooghly andGuptipara, and moved on across theGanges toDacca. From there he traveled toSylhet and, with permission of aKhasi king, exploredthe mountains ofCossy andGentya north of Sylhet. He returned toCalcutta in December with a rich zoological collection, but since then he suffered from thejungle fever. He intended to set off toTibet in September 1822.^[4][5] But due topolitical circumstances, he had to restrict his excursions to the territories ofBenares inBengal, andKathmandu in"Nepaul". There is no record however that he ever traveled to Nepal,^[6] and the editor of theJournal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal noted in 1836 that two of Duvaucel's collectors lived for a year withBrian Houghton Hodgson at Kathmandu.^[7]

Duvaucel died in August 1824 inMadras, but his obituary was not published until April 1825.^[8] Ten years later, rumours were afloat in France that he was mauled by atiger within minutes.^[9] According to letters that Duvaucel wrote to Jean-Jacques Coulmann (1796–1870), the actual cause is now known to have been an attack by anIndian rhinoceros. On 24 January 1823 he was in a place near Rajmahal at "Sielygalli" (Sakrigali) where he was shooting a rhinoceros when another individual attacked him. He was left with a wound in the thigh and unable to walk. His assistants transported him on oxcart to Sakrigali from where he went to Bhagalpur 50 km away. He was treated by a Scottish surgeon and then he travelled to Calcutta. He then moved to Madras where he died from weakness and dysentery.^[10]

In February 1820, theAsiatick Society (Calcutta, India) published an article jointly written by Duvaucel and Diard entitled "Sur une nouvelle espèce de Sorex — Sorex Glis" including a drawing of acommon treeshrew.^[11]

In spring 1822, theAsiatick Society published his article "On the Black Deer of Bengal" including a drawing of adeer species that he had observed in Bengal, Sumatra, and in the mountains north of Sylhet.^[12]

The Paris Museum of Natural History received nearly 2000 animals collected jointly by Duvaucel and Diard during their stay of more than a year in theGreater Sunda Islands. Their consignments comprised 88 mammal species, 630 bird species, 59 reptile species and contained stuffed animals, skins, skeletons, drawings and descriptions of such notable species as theMalayan tapir,Sumatran rhinoceros,Javan rhinoceros,gibbons,leaf monkeys, two previously unknownfruit bat species,tree shrews,skunks,binturong andsun bear.^[13] Several of these species were first described by French zoologists working at the museum.Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest described theMalayan tapir in 1819; theSunda stink badger andParadoxurus hermaphroditus bondar, a subspecies of theAsian palm civet in 1820; theSunda pangolin, theMalayan weasel and the genus ofSemnopithecus in 1822.

In 1821, Raffles published descriptions of the species jointly collected by Duvaucel and Diard in Sumatra, including first descriptions of thesun bear, thebinturong, thecrab-eating macaque, theSumatran surili, thesiamang gibbon, thesilvery lutung, thelarge bamboo rat, thelarge treeshrew and thecream-coloured giant squirrel.^[14]

The many drawings, skeletons, skins and other animal parts that Duvaucel sent to the Paris Museum of Natural History included head, skin and paws of a speciesfrom the mountains north of India that his stepfather's brotherFrédéric Cuvier described asAilurus fulgens in 1825.^[15][16]

Alfred Duvaucel is commemorated in thescientific names of a number of species:

• the barasinghaCervus duvaucelii — described by his stepfatherGeorges Cuvier in 1823;^[17]
• the scarlet-rumped trogonHarpactes duvaucelii — described byCoenraad Jacob Temminck in 1824;
• the river lapwingVanellus duvaucelii — described byRene Primevere Lesson in 1826;
• the Himalayan goralNaemorhedus duvaucelii — described byCharles Hamilton Smith in 1827 is synonymous toNaemorhedus goral described in 1825 byThomas Hardwicke;^[18]
• thePachysoma duvaucelii, a subspecies of thelesser short-nosed fruit bat — described byIsidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1828;
• the mothPsichotoe duvaucelii — described byJean Baptiste Boisduval in 1829;^[19]
• Duvaucel's barbetMegalaima australis duvaucelii — first described asBucco duvauceli byRené Primevère Lesson in 1831 as living in Sumatra;^[20] relegated a subspecies ofXantholæma duvaucelii described byThomas Horsfield andFrederic Moore in 1856 as inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra;^[21] latter was renamedMegalaima duvaucelii by Frederic Moore in 1859^[22] and subordinated toMesobucco duvauceli byGeorge Ernest Shelley in 1891;^[23] the bird is now a valid subspecies of theblue-eared barbet;^[24]
• Duvaucel's cuckooBubutus duvaucelii — described by Lesson in 1831 as living in Sumatra;^[25] subordinated to the genusRhinortha by Shelley in 1891 as a type ofRaffles's malkoha;^[26]
• the Indian squidLoligo duvaucelii — described byAlcide d'Orbigny in 1835 is a synonym ofUroteuthis duvauceli;^[27]
• Duvaucel's geckoHoplodactylus duvaucelii — described byAndré Marie Constant Duméril andGabriel Bibron in 1836;^[28]
• theIndian bee speciesMacrocera duvaucelii — described byAmédée Louis Michel Lepeletier in 1842 is synonymous toTetralonia duvaucelii;^[29]
• the freshwater fishRohita duvaucelii — described byAchille Valenciennes in 1842 is a junior synonym ofOsteobrama vigorsii endemic to India;^[30]
• the olive barbBarbus duvaucelii — described by Valenciennes in 1842 is a junior synonym ofPuntius sarana;^[31]
• the pool barbLeuciscus duvaucelii — described by Valenciennes in 1844 is a junior synonym ofPuntius sophore;^[32]
• thenaseChondrostoma duvaucelii found near Madras — first described by Valenciennes in 1844;^[33]
• Felis Duvaucelli — described byBrian Houghton Hodgson in 1852, was renamedFelis charltoni byThomas Horsfield in 1856;^[34] and classified a subspecies ofPardofelis marmorata byReginald Innes Pocock in 1932;^[35]
• Cyanops duvauceli robinsoni — named byEdward Charles Stuart Baker in 1918 as inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, Thailand and Myanmar,^[36] is another name for the blue-eared barbet.

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  Tupaia glis
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  Cervus duvaucelii
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  Harpactes duvaucelii
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  Drawing ofUroteuthis duvauceli
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  Hoplodactylus duvaucelii

• Biographical Etymology of Marine Organism Names. D

• 1793 births
• 1824 deaths
• People from Évreux
• 19th-century French naturalists
• 19th-century French explorers

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