Fritz Müller

Born in Germany in 1821, Fritz Müller trained in medicine and natural history before emigrating to Brazil in 1852. He settled in the southern state of Santa Catarina, where he taught, farmed, and carried out remarkably original research while living far from Europe’s scientific centers.

Müller is best known for Für Darwin, a book that offered some of the earliest strong support for Darwin’s theory of evolution from detailed studies of crustaceans. He also made lasting contributions to entomology and ecology, including the idea now called Müllerian mimicry, which explains how harmful species can benefit by sharing similar warning signals.

Over the course of his life, he corresponded with Charles Darwin and became one of the most respected naturalists working in Brazil. He died in 1897, but his reputation endures as that of a patient observer whose fieldwork helped connect South American nature with some of the biggest scientific debates of the 19th century.