Léon Jean Marie (or Jean-Marie Léon) Dufour (11 April 1780 at Saint-Sever – 18 April 1865 also at Saint-Sever) was a French medical doctor and naturalist . Between 1799 and 1806 he studied medicine in Paris then returned to Saint-Sever in the Landes He participated as an army doctor in the Peninsular War . The war over, he returned to his birthplace. During his life he published, 232 articles on arthropods ( 20 on spiders ) and was the author of Recherches anatomiques sur les Carabiques et sur plusieurs autres Coléoptères (1824-1826, Paris). Dufour's gland is named after him.
In 1854, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Chantal Boone (2003). Léon Dufour (1780-1865). Savant naturaliste et médecin. Atlantica (Anglet) : 336 p.