Claude Jourdan

Claude Jourdan (18 June 1803, in Heyrieux – 12 February 1873, in Lyon) was a French zoologist and paleontologist.

In Lyon he was a professor of zoology to the Faculté des sciences, and a professor of comparative anatomy at the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1832 to 1869 he was director of the Musée d'histoire naturelle - Guimet in Lyons.

As a zoologist, he conducted studies of living and extinct vertebrates, including Proboscidea (elephants and their ancestors). In 1840–48 he is credited with uncovering 2000 fossils at various excavation sites in France. In 1839 Jules Bourcier named the rufous-shafted woodstar, Chaetocercus jourdanii, after him. It is sometimes referred to as "Jourdan's woodstar".

Published works Mémoire sur un nouveau genre de Lémurien. 1834. Mémoires sur deux mammifères nouveaux de l'Inde, 1837. Mémoires sur un rongeur fossile des calcaires d'eau douce du centre de la France, 1837. Mémoire sur cinq mammifères nouveaux, 1837. Note géologique et paléontologique sur une partie de l'Ardèche. Descriptions de restes fossiles de deux grands mammifères des terrains sidérolitiques. Description d'ossements de l'Ormenalurus agilis, 1866.