François-Louis Laporte, comte de Castelnau

He visited Middle Florida from November 1837 until March 1838, publishing "Essai sur la Floride du Milieu" in 1843.

[5][6] Castelnau, a French savant, was sent by Louis Philippe, in 1843, with two botanists and a taxidermist, on an expedition to cross South America from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, following the watershed between the Amazon and La Plata river systems, and thence to Pará.

[8] In 1856-57, he visited the Cape of Good Hope, travelling as far east as Algoa Bay, and subsequently wrote a treatise on South African fish (1861).

"Ompax spatuloides", a supposed ganoid fish said to have been discovered in 1872 and named by Castelnau, was a joke originally directed at Karl Staiger, the director of the Brisbane Museum.

Staiger forwarded a sketch and description of the made-up fish to Castelnau, who duly described it.