Émile Topsent

Émile-Eugène-Aldric Topsent was a French zoologist known for his research of sponges. He was born in Le Havre.
During his career he worked in several laboratories and institutes in western France. From 1919 to 1927 he was curator at the zoological museum in Strasbourg. In 1920 he was appointed chair of the Société zoologique de France.
Topsent described the Atlantic and Mediterranean sponge collections of Prince [Albert I of Monaco] in three volumes. He named numerous taxa new to science, and his work is considered to be the basis for the modern classification system of Porifera. One of his descriptions involved the hexactinellid sponge Scolymastra joubini, a creature from Antarctic waters that is believed to have a lifespan of 10,000 years.

Partial listing of publications

Contribution à l'étude des clionides, 1888..Resultats des Campagnes Scientifiques Accomplies sur son Yacht par Albert Ier Prince Souvrain de Monaco, 1892..Contribution à l'étude des spongiaires de l'Atlantique North, 1892.. Spongiaires des Açores, 1904..Expédition Antarctique française 1903-1905, Dr. Jean Charcot commandée par le. Sciences naturelles, documents scientifiques. Spongiaires et coelentérés, 1908.. Spongiaires Nationale De L'Expedition Antarctique Ecossaise, 1913..Spongiaires provenant campagnes des scientifiques de la Princesse Alice dans les mers du Nord, 1898-1899, 1906-1907, 1913..Étude de spongiaires du Golfe de Naples, 1925..Diagnoses of éponges nouvelles recueillies par le Prince Albert I of Monaco, 1927..Spongiaires de l'Atlantique et de la Méditerranée des provenant Croisières du Prince Albert I of Monaco, 1928..Aperçu de la faune des Eponges Calcaires de la Méditerranée, 1934..Guide pour la connaissance d'éponges de la Méditerranée tableaux de corrections apportées aux mémoires d'O. Schmidt sur le sujet 1862, 1864, 1868, 1945..