Eugène Simon 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...

 arachnologist. His many taxonomic

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 contributions include categorizing and naming many spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s, as well as creating genera

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 such as Anelosimus

Anelosimus

Anelosimus is a genus of tangle web spider described by Eugène Simon, in 1891, from Venezuela. It includes the South American social spider Anelosimus eximius and related species....

, Psellocoptus

Psellocoptus

Psellocoptus is a genus of running spiders that is endemic to Venezuela. When Eugène Simon discovered the first species , he described it as a "beautiful and large species from the forests of Venezuela which [is] found running rapidly on the trunks of trees"...

and Phlogius.

He also had an interest in hummingbirds. He described several species and races as well as creating the genera Anopetia, Stephanoxis, Haplophaedia

Haplophaedia

Haplophaedia is a small genus of hummingbirds, which - together with the members of the genus Eriocnemis - are known as pufflegs. They are found at low levels in humid forest, woodland and shrub at altitudes of 1200 to 3100 m. asl in the Andes of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia...

and Taphrolesbia. He is commemorated by race simoni of the Swallow-tailed Hummingbird

Swallow-tailed Hummingbird

The Swallow-tailed Hummingbird is a species in the hummingbird family , found mainly in east-central South America. Most authorities place it in the monotypic genus Eupetomena, although some place it in Campylopterus based on song and the thick shafts of the males' first primaries...

 (Eupetomena macroura). His seminal work on hummingbirds was Histoire Naturelle des Trochilidae in 1921.

His most significant work was Histoire Naturelle des Araignées (1892), an encyclopedic treatment of the spider genera of the world.

The International Society of Arachnology

International Society of Arachnology

The International Society of Arachnology promotes the study of arachnids and the exchange of information among researchers in this field. It acts as an umbrella organisation for regional societies and individuals interested in spiders, and related animals, and organises an International Congress...

 offers a Simon Award recognising lifetime achievement.

Simon's works are in the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

in both France and the United States.

External links