Xavier Mattei
Xavier Mattei (born February 2, 1939) is a French zoologist known for studying how sperm is built (sperm ultrastructure) in fish and various invertebrates such as flatworms and acanthocephalans. He has published more than 150 papers on sperm morphology and its use in understanding evolution.
Mattei studied at the University of Dakar in Senegal (Cheikh Anta Diop University). He rose from Assistant to Maître-Assistant and became a Professor in 1978. He directed the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Dakar from 1972 to 1986. In 1993, he moved to the University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli, where he worked until his retirement in 2000.
He founded and headed the Dakar Electron Microscopy Service from 1970 to 1993, helping many researchers study cell ultrastructure with three electron microscopes.
Two species were named in his honor: Unikaryon matteii (a microsporidian) and Mediorhynchus mattei (an acanthocephalan), parasites collected in Senegal.
Away from science, Mattei is an amateur archaeologist who collected artifacts in La Somone, near Dakar, for more than 40 years; he published a book about them in 2015. After retirement, he published three cartoon books about Corsica.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:36 (CET).