French Lazarist missionary and naturalist, born in Espelette in the Pyrenees. Ordained in 1862, he became a missionary in China, where he discovered (186674) hundreds of previously unknown botanical and zoological species, many of them sent to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. His most famous discovery was Père David's deer (elaphurus davidianus).
The Jardin des Plantes commissioned him to undertake scientific journeys through China to make further collections. He succeeded in obtaining many specimens of hitherto unknown animals and plants, and the value of his comprehensive collections for the advance of systematic zoology and especially for the advancement of animal geography received universal recognition from the scientific world.Father David summed up his labours in an address delivered before the International Scientific Congress of Catholics at Paris in April, 1888. He had found in China all together 200 species of wild animals, of which 63 were hitherto unknown to zoologists, and 807 species of birds, 65 of which had not been described before. What Father David's scientific journeys meant for botany may be inferred from the fact that among the rhododendrons which he collected no less than fifty-two new species were found and among the primulae about forty, while the Western Mountains of China furnished an even greater number of hitherto unknown species of gentian.
The most remarkable of the animals found by David which were hitherto-unknown to Europe were the Giant Panda and Père David's Deer. The latter had disappeared with the exception of a few preserved in the gardens of the Emperor of China, but David succeeded in securing a specimen and sent it to Europe. In the midst of his work as a naturalist Father David did not neglect his missionary labours, and was noted for his careful devotion to his religious duties and for his obedience to every detail of his rules.
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