Jacques Pierre Marie Daudin was a Chinese-born, French agronomist, businessman, and environmentalist, who lived and worked in the Caribbean and west Africa. Much of his later life was spent on Union Island, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The Union Island gecko, discovered in 2005, is endemic to the island and named in his honor. He was the author of the books Socio-Political History of Union Island and A Natural History Monograph of Union Island.

Life and career

Daudin was born in China to French ambassador Pierre Daudin and his wife Marie-Louise Daudin. His early schooling took place in China and in Vietnam, where he was childhood friends with future Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk.

Daudin established his life in the the West Indies, where he worked to improve crop diversification and banana production. He owned a house on Union Island, where he lived out his life before dying of cancer in 2011.^[1]