Hommage à Théodore Monod, l'ichtyologue (1902-2000).

As an eclectic scientist, Théodore Monod is well known for his works on deserts, crustaceans, fishes, botany, desert geology, archaeology, ethnology and the history of science. He was one of the first ecologists, protector of nature and life. He devoted himself to more than twenty scientific disciplines during his career. For many scientists he was the specialist of their own discipline, but in fact he was a specialist of many branches of natural sciences. His 100 publications in ichthyology constitute a remarkable body of work even if they represent only 5% of his writings. This written work is considerable: 2167 scientific articles, notes and books for the general public were published in about 80 years. It is therefore delicate to propose a selection that illustrate the eclecticism of their author. In this paper we concentrate on the works in ichthyology. As soon as he was appointed to the Museum in 1922, he was sent to Mauritania for a year to study fish and crustaceans and also their fishing. These two animal groups have always been his passion and his specialty in zoology. Anatomist, he knew how to observe, draw and interpret all the organisms he studied. The books he wrote alone or in collaboration have become references for all ichthyologists and carcinologists. Thanks to his "insatiable and devouring" curiosity of nature, throughout his missions at sea, his explorations of oceanic islands, he collected until the end of his life tens of thousands of samples. His entry, as an assistant, in a laboratory dedicated to overseas fisheries forced him to familiarize with both fish and tropical countries. The contribution of Theodore Monod to the study of fish and fishing was vast. His work concerns both the fundamental aspects and the applications of ichthyology and can be divided into six major themes: "Fishes and fisheries", "Systematics, phylogeny, biogeography", "Biology of fishes", "Anatomy and functional morphology", "Inventories and catalogs of species", "History of Ichthyology". Among his 100 scientific publications on fishes, we note some master works such as the "Contribution to the fauna of Cameroon" (1927), his work on "The fishing industry in Cameroon" (1928), his work on the systematics of Clupeidae (1961), the numerous anatomical studies on tropical species such as the balastids (1958 to 1960) and elopids. We also note his voluminous work on the urophore complex of the Teleosteans (1968), the work on the cephalic osteology of the Scaridae, started in Dakar 60 years before publication, and completed in collaboration in Paris (1994, 1997). Finally, it is essential here to mention the eminent role played by Théodore Monod in the launching of the series of regional Catalogues/Check-lists of fishes ("the Clof..."). The first of these catalogs, the Clofnam ("Checklist of the fishes of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, 1973"), in which he participated very actively as author and mainly co-editor, served as a model for the whole series. While remaining African at heart and in love with deserts, Théodore Monod remained faithful to the sea and to marine fishes, as much in the subjects of his research as in his scientific functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]