Émile Blanchard

Charles Émile Blanchard (; 6 March 1819 – 11 February 1900) was a French zoologist and entomologist.

Career Blanchard was born in Paris. His father was an artist and naturalist and Émile began natural history very early in life. When he was 14 years old, Jean Victoire Audouin (1797—1841) allowed him access to the laboratory of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. In 1838, he became a technician or préparateur in this then, as now, famous institution. In 1841, he became assistant-naturalist.

He accompanied Henri Milne-Edwards (1800—1885) and Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Breau (1810—1892) to Sicily on a marine zoology expedition. He published, in 1845 a Histoire des insectes, or History of the insects and, in 1854—1856 Zoologie agricole or Agricultural Zoology. This last work is remarkable: it presents in a precise way the harmful or pest species and the damage they cause to various crop plants. This work was illustrated by his father. Blanchard was critical of Darwinism. He argued that Charles Darwin's pigeon studies were unscientific and that his ideas about evolution were false and unoriginal.

In 1870, Blanchard and Charles-Philippe Robin opposed the election of Darwin as a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Selected publications

The Transformations (or Metamorphoses) of Insects (1870) [with Duncan P. Martin] Histoire des Insectes (1845) Catalogue des Coleopteres du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris (1850–51) Métamorphoses mœurs et instincts des insectes (1868)