BEING HENRI DE LACAZE-DUTHIERS

Why revive, 200 years after his birth, the personality and work of the zoologist Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers (1821-1901)? Did his work have a lasting impact on research until today? In what way can his career enrich the scientists of today? His evocation should bring some answers to these questions. We will follow him from his youth in an austere castle in the southwest of France to Paris where his taste for natural sciences and his republican convictions are affirmed; then in his first scientific expeditions where his passion for the world of marine invertebrates is triggered. We will witness the progression of his scientific work nourished by his multiple trips to the coasts and his university career, from Lille to Paris. Once he reached academic consecration, we will see him conceptualize the refoundation of zoology into a reso-lutely experimental discipline, by proposing a corpus of pioneering methods. We will leave him as the builder of the first marine stations of Roscoff and Banyuls-sur-Mer which, until today, are at the heart of European marine biology.