Henry Walter Bates

Born in Leicester, England, on February 8, 1825, Henry Walter Bates became one of the great Victorian naturalists. He is most famous for traveling to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848, beginning an expedition that turned into more than a decade of exploration and collecting in South America.

During his years in the Amazon, Bates gathered huge numbers of specimens and made careful observations that later led to an important scientific idea now known as Batesian mimicry, in which a harmless species gains protection by resembling a harmful one. His best-known book, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, drew on those experiences and helped bring the richness of tropical life to a wide reading public.

After returning to England, Bates continued his scientific work and later served for many years as assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. Though he is remembered as an entomologist, traveler, and gifted observer, his lasting importance comes from the way his fieldwork connected adventure with serious science.