Jean Cadenat

Jean Cadenat (born Marmande, Lot-et-Garonne 16 April 1908, died Marmande 28 June 1992) was a French ichthyologist.

Biography

In 1930, he joined the Agricultural Zoology station at La Grand Ferrade as an assistant preparator and the following year he completed his BSc (license) at the University of Bordeaux. From January 1932 to December 1941 he was at La Rochelle as an assistant in the Laboratory of G. Belloc at the Scientific and Technical Office of Fisheries then headed by Edouard Le Danois. During this period, he participated in many research expeditions, firstly aboard trawlers to the coasts of Ireland, France, Spain, Morocco and Mauritania, as well as participating in the fifth scientific cruise of the President Theodore Tissier in 1936 which travelled from the Canary Islands to the coast of Sierra Leone. In 1934, he began his military service in the French Navy, serving aboard Fisheries Patrols. In 1939, he was mobilised back to active service in La Rochelle. When he was demobilised in July 1940, he was seconded as head of laboratory to the Scientific and Technical Office of Maritime Fisheries, part of the General Inspectorate of Livestock Services in Dakar. He was then recruited as an assistant at the French Institute of North Africa (L'Institut Français de l'Afrique du Nord) in 1946. Professor Théodore Monod charged him with the setting up of an oceanographic and biological research station on the island of Gorée, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1965. During his nineteen years at the station, he undertook many expeditions to meet indigenous fishermen from Mauritania to Nigeria and just as many expeditions at sea along the African coast and to the Antilles, as well sailing to Guyana via the Cape Verde Islands. These expeditions enabled him to amass very diverse collection of specimens and study materials, the classification and description of which he was to devote much of his time. This eventually came under the aegis of Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer (ORSTOM).

As an ichthyologist he is also honoured in the specific names of the following fishes:

Bembrops cadenati Das & Nelson, 1996 Merluccius polli cadenati Doutre, 1960 Diplodus cadenati de la Paz, Bauchot & Daget, 1974 Dagetichthys cadenati (Chabanaud, 1948) Pegusa cadenati Chabanaud, 1954 Cynoglossus cadenati Chabanaud, 1947 Uranoscopus cadenati Poll, 1959 Opeatogenys cadenati Briggs, 1957 Entomacrodus cadenati Springer, 1967 Enteromius cadenati (Daget, 1962) Chromis cadenati Whitley, 1951 Hoplostethus cadenati Quéro, 1974 Coloconger cadenati Kanazawa, 1961 Cruriraja cadenati Bigelow & Schroeder, 1962