Louis Charles Émile Lortet was born on August 22, 1836, in Lyon, France.

He was a French physician, botanist, zoologist, and Egyptologist, born into a family of famous naturalists. His grandmother was Clémence Lortet (1772–1835), a French botanist and co-founder of the Linnean Society of Lyon. He earned his medical doctorate at the Paris School of Medicine in 1861, and his degree in natural sciences in 1867. He was appointed Professor of Natural History at the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon and lecturer in zoology at the Faculty of Science in 1869. He served as the first dean at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lyon (1877-1906). He was also director of the Natural History Museum in Lyon (1868-1909). He is remembered for his scientific and zoological expeditions to the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt). He performed studies of mummified animals from the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, and in 1880, he took part in an excavation of a Phoenician necropolis. Lortet was a member of numerous scientific societies, e.g., the Société de géographie de Lyon, being a founding member in 1858. Species with the epithet of lorteti are named in his honour; e.g., the pufferfish species Carinotetraodon lorteti. He is the author of numerous publications regarding his studies, e.g., "Les reptiles fossiles du bassin du Rhône" (1892)", Faune momifiée de l'ancienne Égypte" (1903), and "La vérité (Nécropole de Khozan)" (1909).

In 1864, he married Inès Justine Adèle Brouzet (1842-1872) and in 1876, he married Léontine Cambon (1841-1920). He died on December 26, 1909, in Lyon, France.