Joseph Paul Gaimard (31 January 1793 – 10 December 1858)[1][2] was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.

Along with Jean René Constant Quoy, he served as naturalist on the ships L'Uranie under Louis de Freycinet 1817–1820, and L'Astrolabe under Jules Dumont d'Urville 1826–1829.

[3] During this voyage they discovered the now extinct giant skink of Tonga, Tachygia microlepis.

Along with exploratory and scientific goals, the crew of the expedition was asked to search for French explorer Jules de Blosseville, who had disappeared aboard the Lilloise in Arctic waters a few years earlier.

From 1838 to 1840, again aboard La Recherche, Gaimard was the leader of a scientific expedition to Lapland, Spitzbergen, and the Faroe Islands.