Henri Stempffer

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Henri Stempffer (23 January 1894 – 1 November 1978) was a French scientist who studied butterflies, especially the Lycaenidae family. He was born in Paris and joined the French Entomological Society in 1922, later becoming its president in 1943. He worked at the Banque de France and lived in Nogent-sur-Marne. In 1954 he became a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society in London. He published many works in French and English, including a major 1967 review called Genera of the African Lycaenidae.

In 1973 he received the Karl Jordan Medal from the Lepidopterists' Society. In 1977 he donated his butterfly collection to the entomology laboratory of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. Although his main focus was African species, he never visited Africa; his travels included Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Lebanon in 1972 at the invitation of Torben B. Larsen. During World War II he was part of the French resistance and received the Ordre de la Libération in 1944. He died in Paris in 1978. He wrote about 90 publications and named around 200 new taxa; a complete list was never published.