Achille Valenciennes was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 zoologist.

Valenciennes was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and studied under Georges Cuvier

Georges Cuvier

Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...

. Valenciennes' study of parasitic worms in humans made an important contribution to the study of parasitology

Parasitology

Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question, but by their way of life...

. Valenciennes also carried out diverse systematic classifications, linking fossil and current species.

He worked with Cuvier on the 22-volume Histoire naturelle des poissons (Natural History of Fish) (1828–1848), carrying on alone after Cuvier died in 1832. He is the binomial authority for many species of fish, such as the bartail jawfish

Bartail jawfish

The bartail jawfish , also called phantom jawfish, is a species of fish in the Opistognathidae family....

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