Henri Jekel (September 21, 1816, Paris - August 4, 1891) was a French Coleopterology.
Life and work
Jekel ran a natural history items and books store in Paris. In 1849 he wrote a revision of the work
Genera et species Curculionidarum by the Swedish entomologist Carl Johan Schönherr. From 1854 to 1859 he self-published the three-volume work
Fabricia entomologica.
In the following years he wrote a large number of specialist articles for various journals of entomological societies, including the first description of the
Giraffe weevil from Madagascar in 1860. In total, Jekel described over 550 taxa, 367 of which are still valid today. These include genera and species from the beetle families
Anthribidae,
Attelabidae,
Curculionidae and
Geotrupidae.
Genera described are
Lasiorhynchites,
Conothorax,
Chelotrupes,
Balanobius, Donus,
Eudmetus,
Elytroxys and
Entomops.
In 1855 he published the first part of Insecta Saundersiana or characters of undescribed insects in the collection of William Wilson Saunders
Jekel was a member of the Société entomologique de France. His zoological author abbreviation is Jekel.
Taxon names honouring him
Over 60 species of beetle were named after Jekel, 44 of which are still valid today. These include
Hypselotropis jekeli,
Arachnobas jekeli,
Cholus jekeli,
Attelabus jekeli,
Jordops jekeli,
Gronops jekeli,
Euops jekeli,
Merohister jekeli and
Cyrtonota jekeli.
