Émile-Eugène-Aldric Topsent (10 February 1862 – 22 September 1951) was a French zoologist known for his research of sponges.
In 1920 he was appointed chair of the Société zoologique de France.
Topsent described the Atlantic and Mediterranean sponge collections of Prince Albert I of Monaco in three volumes (1892, 1927 & 1928).
He named numerous taxa new to science, and his work is considered to be the basis for the modern classification system of Porifera.
One of his descriptions involved the hexactinellid sponge Scolymastra joubini, a creature from Antarctic waters that is believed to have a lifespan of 10,000 years.