Belgian paleontologists

Victor van Straelen (14 June 1889 – 29 February 1964) was a Belgian conservationist, palaeontologist and carcinologist.
Van Straelen was born in Antwerp on 14 June 1889, and worked chiefly as a palaeontologist until his retirement in 1954.He was director of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences from 1925 to 1954. In 1926, he instigated the world's first gorilla sanctuary in what became the Parc National Albert (now Virunga National Park). In 1933, he was appointed head of the Institut des Parcs Nationaux du Congo Belge, and in 1948, he was on the executive committee at the foundation of the organisation which would become the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He was the first president of the Charles Darwin Foundation from its foundation in 1959 until his death in 1964.He was awarded a silver Darwin-Wallace Medal by the Linnean Society of London in 1958.

Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck (3 May 1809 – 16 July 1887) was a Belgian palaeontologist and chemist, born at Leuven.
He studied medicine in the university of his native town, and in 1831 he became assistant in the chemical schools. He pursued the study of chemistry in Paris, Berlin and Gießen, and was subsequently engaged in teaching the science at Ghent and Liège. In 1856 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Liège University, and he retained this post until the close of his life.About the year 1835 he began to devote his leisure to the investigation of the Carboniferous fossils around Liège, and ultimately he became distinguished for his researches on the palaeontology of the Palaeozoic rocks, and especially for his descriptions of the molluscs, brachiopods, crustaceans and crinoids of the Carboniferous limestone of Belgium. In recognition of this work the Wollaston medal was awarded to him in 1875 by the Geological Society of London, and in 1876 he was appointed professor of palaeontology at Liège. In 1882, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.He was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1886.Publications:

Eléments de chimie inorganique (1839)
Description des animaux fossiles qui se trouvent dans le terrain Carbonifère de Belgique (1842–1844, supp. 1851)
Recherches sur les animaux fossiles (1847, 1873)See Notice sur LG de Koninck, by E Dupont; Annuaire de l'Aced. roy. de Belgique (1891), with portrait and bibliography.

Pierre-Joseph van Beneden FRS FRSE FGS FZS (19 December 1809 – 8 January 1894) was a Belgian zoologist and paleontologist.