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| Maurice Pic | |
|---|---|
| Name | Maurice Pic |
| Birth date | 23 December 1866 |
| Birth place | Lyon, France |
| Death date | 23 March 1957 |
| Death place | Nice, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | Entomology |
| Known for | Coleoptera taxonomy, extensive species descriptions |
Maurice Pic
Maurice Pic was a French entomologist active in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century, noted for prolific work on Coleoptera and for assembling an extensive personal collection and private library. He contributed thousands of species descriptions and short taxonomic notes that influenced contemporaries and later beetle systematists across Europe and beyond, engaging with institutions and specialists in Paris, Lyon, Nice, and other entomological centers. Pic’s work intersected with major figures and organizations in European natural history and with regional collecting networks spanning France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, Italy, and parts of Asia.
Maurice Pic was born in Lyon in 1866 and received his early schooling in Lyonese institutions where natural history had strong local traditions linked to the collections of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle and regional societies such as the Société linnéenne de Lyon. During his youth Pic would have been aware of the legacies of collectors like Jules Bourgeois and curators such as Henri de Peyerimhoff, whose bibliographies and faunal lists circulated among French provincial naturalists. Pic’s formative education overlapped with the expansion of entomological publishing exemplified by periodicals like the Annales de la Société entomologique de France and the private journals of specialists such as Étienne Mulsant, which provided venues and models for his later short-format descriptions.
Pic’s career was primarily as an independent specialist focused on beetles, operating within a network of amateur and professional entomologists that included figures such as Achille Raffray, Gaston Chevrolat, Armand d'Orbigny, and later correspondents like Lucien Berland. He maintained extensive correspondence with curators at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, with collectors in North Africa and the Mediterranean, and with dealers and institutional libraries in Paris, Nice, Lyon, Toulouse, and Marseille. Pic published prodigiously in journals and series associated with institutions and societies—among them the Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France and various regional annals—often issuing short notes, new species descriptions, and faunal lists. His activity coincided with expeditions and collections from colonial territories, bringing him into contact with material from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, Syria, and Turkey.
Pic was known for numerous short monographs, catalogues, and series of descriptive papers rather than a single magnum opus. He authored multi-part lists and contributions to local faunas, appearing in periodicals associated with the Société entomologique de France, the Annales de la Société linnéenne de Lyon, and other provincial journals. Notable among his outputs were serial descriptions of new Coleoptera taxa published across decades and compiled in catalogues circulated to colleagues and museums including the Natural History Museum, London and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. Pic’s style—a high volume of terse species descriptions—placed him alongside other prolific describers such as Martin Jacoby and Thomas Blackburn, influencing subsequent catalogues by authors like Sylvain Auguste de Marseul and later compendia by Hermann Burmeister and Charles Aubé.
Pic described thousands of new species and many new genera, especially within families such as Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Cerambycidae, and Curculionidae. His names appear in regional checklists and global catalogues for Mediterranean and African beetles, and his type material entered major museum collections including those of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, the Natural History Museum, London, and provincial institutions in Nice and Lyon. Subsequent taxonomists—among them contemporaries and later experts like André Lameere, Stephan von Breuning, and Edmond Fauvel—regularly referenced his descriptions, sometimes revising synonymies or lectotype designations. Pic’s bibliographic legacy also affected faunistic synthesis projects and the development of regional checklists in works by scholars such as Jean Théodore Lacordaire and later compilers of European beetle catalogues.
Pic was an active member of regional and national entomological societies, including the Société entomologique de France and local naturalist associations in Lyon and Nice. He exchanged specimens and publications with institutions such as the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle and the Natural History Museum, London, and his name appears in acknowledgments and indices of many entomological periodicals of his era. While Pic did not hold major academic posts, his recognition among collectors and specialists was reflected in commemorative notices in the journals of the Société linnéenne de Lyon and obituaries by contemporaries in the Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France.
Category:French entomologists Category:Coleopterists Category:1866 births Category:1957 deaths