Jean Vacelet is a French marine biologist who specialises in the underwater fauna of the Mediterranean.
[1] After earning his licence at the Faculté des Sciences de Marseille and learning to dive in 1954, he specialised in the study of sponges at the Marine station of Endoume, and there he has stayed faithful to both sponges and place for more than half a century.
His research has included all aspects of sponges: taxonomy, habitat, biology, anatomy, their bacterial associations, and their place in the evolution of multi-celled animals.
Exploration of underwater grottoes,[2] together with Jacques Laborel and Jo Hamelin, revealed the existence of sponges dating from very ancient geological periods and the unexpected existence of carnivorous sponges,[3][4] and surprisingly, the grottoes in some ways mimicked life at much greater depths.
[5] He earned one doctorate in 1958 and his doctorat ès-sciences, under Professor Claude Lévi[6] in 1964.