France Staub


France Staub was a Mauritian ornithologist, herpetologist, botanist, and conservationist.

Biography

Staub was a descendant of French botanist Jacques Delisse. He obtained the diploma at the Mauritius College of Agriculture in 1944. In 1951 he attended the Guy's Hospital, Medical and Dental School in London where he was qualified as a dental surgeon. Back on Mauritius he devoted most of his free time to the observation of the birdlife and study of botany in the Mascarenes and the adjacent islands. He published the two books Birds of the Mascarenes and Saint Brandon and Fauna of Mauritius and Associated Flora about the avian fauna and several articles in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius of which he was a member since 1955. He was seven times the president of this history society. By 1970 Staub was the chairman of the Mauritian Section of the International Council for Bird Preservation. In 1971 he joined the British Ornithologists' Union.
Staub is best known for his analysis of relationships between main pollinators such as day geckos or endemic birds like the threatened Mauritius olive white-eye and their endemic host plants like Trochetia.
The vine species Cynanchum staubii discovered 1965 by France Staub on Ile aux Aigrettes was named by Jean Marie Bosser.

Publications