Aloïs Humbert
Aloïs Humbert was a Swiss naturalist and paleontologist who specialized in the study of myriapods. He also described new vertebrates, molluscs and flatworms.
Biography
Humbert was born in Geneva on 22 September 1829, the son of Augustin Pyramus Humbert, a notary and politician, and Suzanne Charlotte Du Roveray. He studied natural sciences at the Academy of Geneva and at the University of Montpellier. In 1854, Humbert began working as a curator at the Natural History Museum of Geneva, where he worked closely with François Jules Pictet. He was involved in scientific missions to Ceylon and Lebanon; his work focused in particular on the fossils of Lebanon, the fauna of Ceylon, myriapods and geography. While in the Middle East, Humbert made important discoveries of fossil fish.Humbert was appointed substitute teacher at the Academy of Geneva in 1864, the same year he married Jeanne Françoise Adélaïde Rochette, daughter of the Mayor of Bernex, Jean François Rochette. He worked on the catalogues of the Natural History Museum and the Bibliothèque de Genève. In 1876, on behalf of the recently founded Red Cross, Humbert organized a relief society for wounded soldiers in Montenegro during the Montenegrin–Ottoman War (1876–1878). He died in Onex on 13 May 1887, aged 57.