Louis François de Pourtalès (4 March 1824 – 18 July 1880)[2] was a Franco-American naturalist, born at Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Pourtales was born on 4 March 1824 and regarded as a Swiss representative of an old family with lineage in France, Prussia, and Bohemia.

[2] In 1848, he entered government service with the United States Coast Survey and became profoundly interested in the deep sea.

[2] In 1851 he assisted in the triangulation of the Florida Reef, and from 1854 until his resignation in 1873 had special charge of the office and field work of the tidal department of the Coast Survey.

[3] In 1871, Pourtalès published one of his most famous works, Deep Sea Corals based on his memoirs as the first in the United States to undertake deep-sea dredging[2] with USC&GS George S. Blake and was an authority on marine zoology.