Jean René Constant Quoy

Jean René Constant Quoy (10 November 1790, Maillé - 4 July 1869, 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 (1848-1858).

Taxonomy

The following genera or species were named in his honor:

• Cracticus quoyi (Black Butcherbird) René Primevère Lesson, 1827
• Quoya Labbé, 1934
• Quoyia Gray, 1839
• Terebra quoygaimardi Cernohorsky, 1976
• Pilumnus quoyi H. Milne-Edwards, 1834
• Ischnochiton quoyanus J. Thiele, 1910

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).

References

• The Bird Collectors by Barbara and Richard Mearns ISBN 0-12-487440-1