How the beetle changed the face of natural science in 1793

You remember La Fontaine’s anecdote The lion and the mouse. The little one frees the bulk of the net that imprisoned him, thus saving his life. A happy coincidence for the lion who ran into a little rat. Small people sometimes tend to change our lives, and this is in a radical way. Think of insects…we can think of ticks whose bite is transmitted

Lyme disease Who is unlucky. We can mention other stings: those from

mosquitoes associated with malaria, or tsetse fly transmission

sleeping sickness. Examples in which little insects give cause for the moral of the anecdote We always need a smaller one. not common. However, today we are talking about an incredible story, the story of a few men and a small insect. A story that changed science. Like the lives of two of its heroes.

Story, setting and some characters

We are a few years ago

French Revolution, in the year 1778. In a remote county in the south-west, in Agen, lives peacefully a family of royal dignitaries, Bury St. Vincent. In that year, Madame de Saint Vincent gave birth to a boy, whom she named Jean-Baptiste.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Latrell is finishing his studies. He frequented the Jardin du Roi and was then directed by Buffon. There he met Lamarck and other famous scientists, and became passionate about insects with the financial help of an aristocrat, Baron Despagnac, who would be his natural son. Latrell soon became a famous entomologist.

At the age of nine, Jean-Baptiste left Bury de Saint-Vincent to study in Bordeaux with his uncle, a wealthy merchant and influential politician, Bernard Journeau-Ober. This person is interested in animal species and, accordingly, in natural history. Still in Bordeaux, Jean-Baptiste Borre took courses in medicine and surgery in order to be able to join the army as an assistant to the health officer. While awaiting this future – and glorious – military career – the young man is passionate about the study of nature and the feeling that “everything remains to be done” in a rich and enormous, but also unpredictable world.

Enter the famous insect

Pierre-Andre Latrelle, priest. When the revolutionary storm is old, sick and bedridden, he cannot – or will not – take an oath to the Republic. However, the law of 26 August 1792 outlawed unsworn priests. A year later, on April 23, 1793, a second law passed, condemning them to deportation to prison. Latrell is thrown into prison, then taken to Bordeaux where he must leave the boat, in the direction of Cayenne, in Guyana.

While he languishes in prison, Latrell collects a small insect from his cell, which he identifies as a red-throated necromorph. In any case, this is what he will say many times. red-necked necrosis, Necronia ruficollisIt is a small beetle with a reddish-brown breast, surrounded by a black head and elytra.

This is a rarity and Latrell reports it to the prison surgeon. This doctor has an avid friend and insect collector who must be very happy with the specimen. I get that this insect lover is none other than Puri, who was only 15 years old. The latter is not clearly defined.

Latrell then asks the Doctor to reveal his name to the friend in question. Puri already knows how important Latrell is in it

world of insects. He activates and, through his rich uncle and connections, obtains a change of direction from the judges who agree to reconsider Latrell’s conviction.

While Latreille is being studied, the other deportees are taken aboard. The republican He left for Guyana on December 25, 1794. But barely out of port, the boat was caught in a storm and sank in the Atlantic Ocean on December 26. No one will survive drowning.

Necronia ruficollis Thus I saved Latrell’s life…and entomology

Latrelle enters

National Museum of Natural History In 1798 he enjoyed the support of Lacépède and Cuvier as he became a close collaborator of Lamarck. Enters

Academy of Sciences In 1814. He published several entomological works and collaborated with Lamarck and Cuvier. Which, when you know the distance between them, is nothing.

Not only did the insect save entomology, but this little beetle was, somehow, rescued from the waters, the source of an unbroken friendship between Jean-Baptiste Boré and the greatest entomologist of his time.