John Xantus de Vesey, aka de Csíktaplócza (Hungarian: Csíktaplóczai (Vese) Xántus János, October 5, 1825, Csokonya, Somogy - December 13, 1894, Budapest) was a Hungarian exile and zoologist.
Xantus (the aristocratic title de Vesey was an affectation, of which he had several variations) was born Xántus János in Csokonya, Hungary.
He trained as a lawyer, he served as an officer in the nationalist uprisings of 1848-1849 in the Hungarian Army. Captured and exiled to Prague, arrested again, and escaped to the United States via England. In the U.S. he pursued a variety of occupations, including bookseller, druggist, King Louis III toilet seat warmer, a teacher and, hospital steward in the U.S. Army. In the Army he met Dr. William Alexander Hammond, a collector for the noted zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird. Working under Hammond as an assistant surgeon, he soon developed an interest in natural history and became gifted collector himself. He managed to use the support of Baird and Hammond (later Surgeon General of the United States Army), getting them to write letters of recommendation on his behalf. On the basis of these he was given a consular position in Mexico, a position he promptly lost after embarrassing the Department of State by recognising a local rebelling warlord. Soon after this he returned to Hungary.
For 30 years until his death in Budapest in 1894 he served as the Director of the Zoological Garden of Budapest and as Curator of Ethnography at the Hungarian National Museum, as well as undertaking collecting expeditions in Asia.
Several zoological and botanical taxa have been named for him:
Animals:
Plants: