Henry Walter Bates

Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892), British naturalist and explorer, best known for his interpretation of the phenomenon of mimicry among insects. Bates was born in Leicester, England, and was at first apprenticed to a hosier. From earliest youth, however, he was an enthusiastic naturalist, and he published his first scientific paper at the age of 18.

In 1844 Bates met naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, best known for his development of a theory of evolution based on natural selection, contemporaneously with the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Bates and Wallace sailed together in 1848 to Pará (Belém), Brazil, on the Amazon River. Bates remained in Brazil until 1859, exploring the upper Amazon and studying the natural history of the area. During his travels, he collected about 8000 new species of previously unknown insects. In 1861 Bates presented a paper about his research on mimicry to the scientific organization called the Linnaean Society. The paper has become a classic in the field of mimicry.

Bates first encountered the phenomenon of mimicry working with two similarly marked but unrelated families of butterflies in the Brazilian forests. Noting that one family was poisonous to birds, Bates explained that the palatable butterflies had survived by evolving similar warning markings. This concept, now called Batesian mimicry, was used to demonstrate Darwin's theory of natural selection, whereby birds were seen to act as selective agents by eliminating the palatable butterflies that had fewer similarities to the poisonous butterflies.

In 1863 Bates published an account of his travels called The Naturalist on the River Amazon, which was immediately acclaimed. In 1864 he was appointed assistant secretary to the Royal Geographical Society and in this post had both administrative and editorial responsibilities, which he combined with a study of beetles. In 1881, Bates was elected to the Royal Society, an organization formed to promote the natural sciences.