Hungarian lawyer and naturalist who was exiled from his home country and settled in the U.S.A. Janos Xantus de Vesey was born in Csokonya, Hungary, and trained as a lawyer before he became involved with the nationalist uprisings in 1848, serving as an officer, which resulted in his capture and exile to Prague. Still under threat of arrest he fled to the United Kingdom and from there settled in the United States. He arrived with few resources and earned a living by selling books, teaching and working in hospitals for the U.S. army. It was while employed in the latter in Fort Riley, Kansas, that he met William A. Hammond for whom he became an assistant surgeon.

Hammond was a naturalist collector for Spencer F. Baird and Xantus soon developed an interest and indeed a talent for gathering natural history specimens. He collected in California while stationed in Fort Tejon (1857 to 1859), finding several species new to science. Later he became involved in maritime affairs in San Francisco, from which he was given a position in charge of a tidal station in Cape San Lucas (Baja California) for the U.S. Coastal Survey (1859-1861). Here Xantus made important contributions to our understanding of the herpetofauna of the region, sending large amounts of specimens to Baird and E. D. Cope at the U.S. National Museum. Through his connections with Hammond and Baird and the quality of the collections he amassed while in Mexico, he was named a U.S. consul in Colima in 1863. Unfortunately Xantus was involved with some untoward dealings and became associated with a local rebelling warlord, losing him the consular title and causing considerable embarrassment.

After remaining for a few months in Manzanillo to collect he returned to Europe in 1864 and after visiting the zoological gardens of Amsterdam and Brussels he arrived back in Hungary to be made director of the Zoological Garden of Budapest. He would fulfil this role from 1866 until his death, and was at the same time the curator of Ethnography at the Hungarian National Museum. Between 1869 and 1871 Xantus undertook another major expedition to East Asia, collecting in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Borneo and Japan in order to gather artifacts for the museum. A large number of plants and animals now bear his name, including four plant species, two birds, three fish, a gecko and a crab, as well as the family Xantusiidae and genus Xantusia of lizards.

Sources:
Flores Villela, O. A., Smith, H. M. and Chiszar, D., 2004, "The History of Herpetological Exploration in Mexico". Bonner Zoologische Beiträge 52(3/4): 311-335
John Xantus de Vesey. Wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Xantus_de_Vesey.