François de Loys

Louis François Fernand Hector de Loys (1892–1935) was a Swiss oil geologist. He is remembered today for the claim that he discovered a previously unknown primate, De Loys's ape, during a 1920 oil survey expedition in Venezuela. The identity of the animal he photographed has long been established with considerable confidence to be a spider monkey, and the identification as a new species is generally regarded as a hoax. He died of syphilis in 1935.