René Oberthür 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...

 entomologist who specialised in Coleoptera.
With his brother Charles Oberthür

Charles Oberthür

Charles Oberthür was a French entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera. He was the son of François-Charles Oberthür.Oberthür named 42 new genera of moths -Works:...

 he worked in "Imprimerie Oberthür" the very successful printing business founded by his father François-Charles Oberthür

François-Charles Oberthür

François-Charles Oberthür was the founder of the French printing group Imprimerie Oberthur . In Strasbourg, François-Charles, an engraver, ran a printing press, with Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography. He moved to Rennes in 1838, qualified as a lithographer in 1842 and then founded a...

.
René and Charles supplied free bibles, missals, catechisms and other printwork to missionaries in exchange for insect specimens.In addition they purchased on a large scale, acquiring almost all the large collections sold during their lifetime.

Works

• Coleopterorum Novitates- Recueil spécialement consacré à l'étude des Coléoptères, Tome (Volume) 1 (1883)(the only published part of an intended series). Very few copies of this 80 page work, published by René himself, were printed and it ends abruptly.René Oberthür contributed "Scaphidides nouveaux"; "Nouvelles espèces de Monommides"; "Trois Nebria nouvelles"; "Un Coptolabrus nouveau"; "Carabiques récoltés à Saint-Laurent-du Maroni par Nodier"; "Deux espèces nouvelles de Geotrupides"; "Trois espèces nouvelles du genre Helota"; "Deux espèces nouvelles du genre Lemodes" There were only two other contributors Maximilien Chaudoir
  Maximilien Chaudoir
  Maximilen Chaudoir, or Maximilien, baron de Chaudoir, was a Russian entomologist....
  
   "Carabiques nouveaux" and Léon Fairmaire
  Léon Fairmaire
  Léon Marc Herminie Fairmaire was a French entomologist.A specialist in Coleoptera he assembled an immense collection comparable with that of Pierre François Marie Auguste Dejean . This is in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle...
  
   Note sur le genre Chalaenus and Espèces nouvelles d'Hétéromères de Madagascar.
• with C. Houlbert (1913) Lucanides de Java. Insecta; revue illustree d’Entomologie, Rennes 4 parts (1913–1914)-includes (1914) Catalogue systematique des lucanides considered somme ayant ete trouves dans l'ile de Java.

Collection

His collections are conserved by Muséum national d'histoire naturelle

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle

The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...

(5 million specimens in 20,000 cases) Museum Koenig

Museum Koenig

The Alexander Koenig Research Museum is a natural history museum and zoological research institution in Bonn, Germany. The museum is named after Alexander Koenig, who donated his collection of specimens to the institution...

 and Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova

Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova

The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova is a natural history museum in Genoa, northern Italy.-External links:*...

(Indomalayan and Papua Coleoptera).

External links

• Rene Oberthur at www.fond4beetles.com Portrait]
• Culture France