Pascal Deynat
Pascal Deynat is a French naturalist and a professor in Paris Diderot University. An Ichthyologist by training, he is a specialist in the study of skin coating of cartilaginous fishes as part of the Odontobase Project. Biography In 1994, he wrote his first article on the loops of Potamotrygonidae's fossil along with his friend, a Brazilian paleontologist Paulo Brito. His first work on the relationship between the cutaneous denticles of sharks and their ecology was presented at the 7th International Congress of Ichthyology at The Hague. In 1994, Deynat continued his doctoral research on the systematic and taxonomic applications of the skin covering of Pristiformes and Rajiformes, which he completed with a 15-day stay at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In 1997, he participated in the production of a poster for Overseas Scientific and Technical Research Office. In the same year, Professor Guy Duhamel offered him a job as a fisheries controller in the Kerguelen Islands without sufficient preparations. Deynat's aquaphobia caused the mission to fail, and he was then forced to leave his host laboratory to find work as a salesman with the bookstore Gibert Joseph. In 2000, while handling the CD-ROMs of a paleontology database named Paleobase, Deynat had the idea of creating Odontobase to identify and catalog the odontodes (cutaneous denticles, spines and loops) of all species of chondrichthyans. He was working on the project while presenting the subject of his original research to the media. The detailed study of the variations of the cutaneous coating allowed him to discover a new type of denticles, the myrmecoid denticles, typical of tha Raja of the eastern Atlantic. In parallel with his activities, the Gibert Joseph bookstore authorized him to present a photographic exhibition of electron microscopy called "Shark on edge", produced jointing with the National Museum of Natural History. In 2005, based solely on the characteristics of the skin covering, Deynat demonstrated that saw-fish of the genus Pristis, can be divided into two groups according to the characteristics of their denticles, and the conclusion was identical to a genetic study carried out a few months later. At the end of 2006, he was given the opportunity to use the characteristics of the skin covering for a practical purpose, that of identifying the isolated fins of sharks. This project was done in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature, Shark Alliance and QUAE for fighting against shark finning. While continuing to work on it, his revision work on the skin covering of Potamotrygonidae enabled him to discover a new species from Guyana, which he named with the first name of his daughter Marina, Potamotrygon Marinae. This discovery allowed him to re-emphasize his research with the mainstream press, and raise public awareness of pinning by participating in a debate organized in 2007 as part of the Jules Verne Aventures Festival. He continued his work alone, and in 2009 he published a book for the general public on