author
Henry Walter Bates
1825–1892
An English naturalist and explorer, he spent more than a decade in the Amazon and helped change how scientists understood the natural world. His observations of butterflies led to the idea now known as Batesian mimicry.
1 Audiobook
The Naturalist on the River Amazons
by Henry Walter Bates
About the author
Born in Leicester in 1825, Henry Walter Bates grew up with a strong interest in insects and natural history. In 1848 he sailed to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace, and while Wallace returned after a few years, Bates stayed on for about eleven years, collecting huge numbers of specimens and making detailed observations of life in the rainforest.
He became especially important to science for explaining a striking pattern in butterflies: some harmless species survive by evolving to resemble harmful or unpleasant ones. This idea, later called Batesian mimicry, offered powerful support for the emerging theory of evolution by natural selection.
Bates also wrote the well-known travel book The Naturalist on the River Amazons, remembered for its vivid account of the people, wildlife, and landscapes he encountered. He died in London in 1892, but his work still stands as a lively blend of adventure writing and careful scientific discovery.