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Jean Théodore Delacour was an American ornithologist and aviculturalist of French origin. He was renowned for not only discovering but also rearing some of the rarest birds in the world. He established very successful aviaries twice in his life, stocked with birds from around the world, including those that he obtained on expeditions to Southeast Asia, Africa and South America. His first aviary in Villers-Bretonneux was destroyed in the First World War, and the second one that he established at Clères was destroyed in the Second World War. He moved to the United States of America where he worked on avian systematics and was one of the founders of the International Committee for Bird Protection (later BirdLife International). One of the birds he discovered was the imperial pheasant, later identified as a hybrid between the Vietnamese pheasant and the silver pheasant

Obaysch was harpooned (bearing the scar all his life) when only a few days old, near an island in the Nile, from which he took his name. He arrived in London on 25th May 1850 and became the first hippo to reach Europe since the days of the Roman Empire. Despite lacking the engaging appearance and nature normally associated with Zoo stars, he quickly became the rage in London. Queen Victoria inspected him shortly after his arrival. In 1854 a female, Adhela, joined him. In 1871 Obaysch fathered London Zoo's first baby hippo. Sadly it did not survive. In 1872 two more were born, and the second of these, named Guy Fawkes because of its birthday (although subsequently discovered to be female), became the first captive-bred hippo to be reared by its mother. Obaysch died in 1878, while his hardly less popular daughter survived until 1908