Victor Thiollière

Victor Joseph de l'Isle Thiollière (28 May 1801 – 14 May 1859) was a French civil engineer, geologist and paleoichthyologist.

He was born at Saint-Étienne. He conducted studies of fossils found in the calcareous limestone at the Cerin quarry, located 80 kilometers east of Lyon, from which, he described numerous paleoichthyological species.^[1] He is the taxonomic authority of the genera Holochondrus, Spathobatis, Belemnobatis and Phorcynis.^[2] The feather star species Solanocrinites thiollieri was named after him by paleontologist Perceval de Loriol.^[1] He died in Lyon.

His family donated his collection of fossils to the Muséum de Lyon, comprising 1702 items primarily from the Rhône-Alpes region, with 699 coming from the Cerin deposit (30 holotypes).^[1]

He is credited with creating the first geological map of the Rhône department, which he presented to the Société d'agriculture de Lyon, an organization that he became a member of in 1848. He was also a member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Lyon (1848–1859) and the Société linnéenne de Lyon (1850–1858).^[1]

Selected works

A plate from Descriptions des poissons fossiles provenant des gisements coralliens du Jura dans le Bugey by Thiollière.

• Sur un nouveau gisement de poissons fossiles, dans le Jura du département de l'Ain, (1850).^[3]
• Seconde Notice sur le gisement et sur les corps organisés fossiles des calcaires lithographiques, dans le Jura du département de l'Ain, (1851).
• Descriptions des poissons fossiles provenant des gisements coralliens du Jura dans le Bugey, Paris, Editions J.-B. Baillière, 37 p. (1854). — Part 2 later reviewed and annotated by Paul Gervais with the help of Gaston de Saporta, Albert Falsan and Eugène Dumortier, Lyon, Éditions H. Georg, 1873, p. 7-26.
• Rapport sur un Mémoire de M. Michaud intitulé : "Description des coquilles fossiles découvertes aux environs de Hauterives (Drôme)", et sur le terrain tertiaire où ces coquilles se rencontrent, présenté à la Société impériale d'agriculture, d'histoire naturelle et des arts utiles de Lyon, dans la séance du 15 juin 1855, Lyon, Barret (1855).
• Sur les travaux de la réunion extraordinaire de la Société géologique à Valence, en septembre 1854, communication faite à la Société... d'agriculture et d'histoire naturelle de Lyon. Lyon, Barret. (1855).^[1]

Taxon named in his honor

• Diaphus thiollierei, Fowler, 1934 the Thiolliere's lanternfish, is a species of lanternfish found in the Indo-Pacific.^[4]