The Butterfly Hunter: Henry Walter Bates FRS 1825-1892 - Couverture rigide

Crawforth, Dr Anthony

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0956071619 ISBN 13 : 9780956071613

Editeur : The University of Buckingham Press, 2009

Synopsis

C'est l'histoire épique, vraie et attendue depuis longtemps du jeune explorateur qui a présenté le premier cas pour la création d'une nouvelle espèce, fournissant ce que Charles Darwin a appelé la « belle preuve » de la sélection naturelle.

La découverte majeure du mimétisme batésien a été développée à partir du fascinant voyage de 11 ans de Bates et de l'étude des papillons dans la forêt amazonienne. Il a noté comment certains animaux adoptent l'apparence des autres pour tromper les prédateurs et obtenir un avantage pour survivre.

Peu connu du public, Bates a apporté d'autres contributions cruciales à la biologie : il a collecté plus de 14 000 spécimens, dont plus de 8 000 étaient nouveaux dans la science à l'époque. Il est devenu l'administrateur de la Royal Geographical Society et l'a transformée en une institution qui combine l'exploration avec la recherche académique, et était responsable de placer la géographie dans le programme scolaire.

Ce livre important réévalue la vie de Bates et place enfin l'homme et son travail à leur juste place aux côtés des autres grands.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

There are three nineteenth century travellers to Brazil who in their search for an understanding of the origins of species were to change the course of history. Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. Charles Darwin, needs little introduction; Wallace, sidelined for many years as a mere shadow of Darwin, has recently been re-evaluated and there is now a greater understanding of his role as co-discoverer with Darwin of the origins of species. Bates however remains relatively unknown. Nevertheless, a theory about mimetic resemblances [mimicry] attaches to Bates's name and the fact remains that had Bates not first defined his idea, Darwin and Wallace would probably have been denied access to a very specific process of thought. The importance of this theory of mimicry is that it led to a greater understanding of evolution. Therefore, this book sets out to bring Bates out from the shadows, and place this extraordinary man in a more elevated scientific context. Wallace and Bates travelled together to the Amazon and while Wallace stayed on the Amazon for only four years before moving on to the Malay Archipelago, Bates remained there for more than eleven years. On returning to London, Bates began sorting his collections and publishing important entomological papers culminating in 1862 with Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley. Lepidoptera: heliconidae which included an interesting geographical analysis of species distribution and announced his theory of protective resemblances or mimicry. In 1863, with encouragement from Charles Darwin he published his book The Naturalist on the River Amazons, which quickly reached classic status in the field of literary scientific travel writing. This book looks at the three periods of Bates's life. He is observed as the young boy searching for knowledge and as the untiring explorer and adventurer. We scrutinize him as a scientific theorist and as a peripatetic collector, jotting down with meticulous care the daily detail of his collecting. In later life, we see him wrestling with the problem of acceptance by the scientific elite of his day despite the fact that in the nineteenth century, most people were assigned predictable social roles and status and were expected to identify with the standard models that were associated with gender, social class, nationality or religion. And finally his later work as assistant secretary to the Royal Geographical Society.

Revue de presse

I recommend Butterfly Hunter, not just to Lepidopterists, but to anyone interested in natural history and the history of science....his writing is personal, vivid and entertaining. I particularly enjoyed reading Crawforth s introductory material describing converging life stories of Wallace, Bates, and others who contributed to Darwin s synthesis in On the Origin of Species. Bates met Alfred Russel Wallace when both were college students in England. They shared an interest in natural history and were intrigued by the mystery of the origin of species. The two men hatched an idealistic scheme to travel to Brazil, to be funded by collecting specimens to be shipped back to England and sold to museums and private collectors. This new book by Anthony Crawforth helps put the Bates back into Batesian mimicry and will be a welcome resource to better understand the importance of Henry W. Bates work on mimicry in butterflies and his contributions to evolutionary theory. The author believes that Bates, in spite of his friendship and professional association with Wallace and Darwin, is relatively unknown and his contributions to evolutionary theory not fully appreciated outside a small circle of evolutionary biologists. This book is biography of a scientist whose discovery and elucidation of mimicry in Lepidoptera was historically important. Its strength is in its extensive biographical material and it isn t intended to be either a natural history of the Amazon region nor a popular science treatment of mimicry in Lepidoptera. --MICHAEL M. COLLINS, Research Associate, Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: The University of Buckingham Press
• Date d'édition: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0956071619
• ISBN 13: 9780956071613
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible