- English
naturalist and explorer, who spent 11 years collecting animals
and plants in South America and identified 8,000 new species
of insects. He made a special study of camouflage in animals,
and his observation of insect imitation of species that are unpleasant
to predators is known as 'Batesian mimicry'.
Bates was born in Leicester and left school at 13, but studied
natural history in his spare time. In 1844 he met English naturalist
Alfred Russel Wallace, and together they travelled to the Amazon
region of South America 1848 to study and collect its flora and
fauna. Wallace returned to England 1852 but Bates remained until
1859. He returned with a vast number of specimens, including
more than 14,000 species of insects.
In 1861 Bates presented a paper entitled 'Contributions to an
insect fauna of the Amazon Valley', in which he outlined his
observations of mimicry. He had discovered that several different
species of butterflies have almost identical patterns of colours
on their wings, and that some are distasteful to bird predators
whereas others are not. He suggested that the latter types, influenced
by natural selection, mimic the distasteful species and thus
increase their chances of survival.
In The Naturalist on the River Amazon 1863, Bates described both
his explorations and his scientific findings.
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