Sander Rang or Paul Charles Leonard Alexander Rang (1793, Utrecht -1844, Mayotte) was a French conchologist and interpreter of Arabic texts. He was, in 1816, one of the survivors of the sinking of the frigate Medusa, on which he was an ensign. He spent a good part of his life in La Rochelle, where he published his early zoological observations, in particular in the bulletins of the Society of Natural Sciences of Charente-Maritimes.In 1841 Rang was one of the founding members of the Société des Amis des Arts now the Musée des Beaux-Arts de La Rochelle.He specialised in marine fauna notably in sea hares, cephalopods and other molluscs and on the heterogenous group known as zoophytes. Sander Rang described many new mollusc species including the sea hares Aplysia dactylomela, Dolabrifera dolabrifera, the cuttlefish Sepia hierredda and the land snails Striosubulina striatella, Pleurodonte desidens and Opeas hannense.
Sander Rang was born into a family of Protestant bourgeoisie (people with private wealth, an upper class social status, and its related culture) from Vivarais. His grandfather was Alexandre Rang des Adrets (1722-1792) a pastor from Crest, in the Drôme. His father, Jean-Alexandre Rang des Adrets (1757-1824) also a pastor, went into exile in Utrecht. Later he settled in La Rochelle. Sander Rang was born in Utrecht in 1793. He spent a good part of his life in La Rochelle.In 1816, aged 23, he enlisted on La Méduse a frigate ferrying French officials to the port of Saint-Louis, in Senegal. Ineptly commanded, La Méduse struck the Bank of Arguin off the coast of present-day Mauritania and became a total loss. Sander Rang was on the captain's boat and not on the ill-fated raft. His manuscript account of these events was published in 1946.[1]
By then a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, he married Perrine Esther Agathe Louise Cassen-Vaucorbeil (26 August 1805, Saint-Malo - 9 June 1884, La Rochelle) at Île-de-France in 1827. She was a painter taught by Eugène Delacroix and the couple participated in all the cultural activities of La Rochelle. On 4 October 1829 he left the naval port of Toulon commanding the naval brig (brick de L'Etat) La Champenoise embarked for first Almeria, then Gorée and the Senegal coast then Ile de prince then to Brasil. At the time such voyages were a part of the expansion of the French colonial empire but Rang's naval duties allowed sufficient time to collect molluscs. Promoted to the rank of Captain 1st Class of corvette, he left La Rochelle and became captain of the port of Algiers in 1834. In 1837 he has the rank Officieur superiéure au Corps royal de la Marines and he was appointed administrator (superior commander) of Mayotte in 1842. He died of a fever. His wife married a banker in La Rochelle, Théophile Babut a year later.
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