Hippolyte-Victor Collet-Descotils was a French chemist, born November 21, 1773 in Caen, and died December 6, 1815 in Paris. He studied in the École des Mines de Paris, and was a student and friend of Louis Nicolas Vauquelin.He is best known for confirming the discovery of chromium by Vauquelin, and for independently discovering iridium in 1803.In 1806, Collet-Descotils misidentified erythronium, a new element discovered in Mexico by Andrés Manuel del Río, thinking that it was chromium.