He traveled widely in South America using every opportunity to carry out many observations on local fauna.

He occupied himself actively with the collections of zoology of the natural history museum of the university from his nomination and greatly enriched it.

On his death, the natural history museum included a collection of 12,000 species, with beautiful series of ornithology and ichthyology.

From 1834 to 1838, he published Introduction à l'entomologie, comprenant les principes généraux de l'anatomie et de la physiologie des insectes, (Introduction to entomology, including the general principles of the anatomy and the physiology of the insects) in three volumes.

One of his three brothers, Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, was a Dominican priest and an important liberal Catholic polemicist.