Morgan Wolfe
BIOL 106-001
ITJ Ch. 3 Summary
2/2/16

Henry Walter Bates began his story much like the famous Charles Dickens. Much like the statement “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, Bates had his own good and bad experiences while he was in the Amazon. He describes his best time as all of the scenery in the Amazon jungle. While it was a dangerous jungle, he found much comfort in all of the insects, animals, and the water flowing so peacefully in the morning while the sun was rising. While his worst of times were while his companion Alfred Wallace left him in March 1850. He was later stricken with yellow fever. He did not go home though, and he spent eleven years in total in the jungle. The reason for all this time in the jungle was because the butterfly specimens he was sending became very popular. He then proceeded to explore many miles of the Amazon in order to continue looking for specimens. There were many animals in the river throughout his many adventures as he took in the boat from the various tribes around the area. He was fascinated with the butterflies of the Amazon more than anything but he had a lot of trouble telling two of the species apart. Those species were the Leptalidae and Heliconidae while they were in flight. He noticed a lot of the species were difficult to tell apart. After he realized some of them were so similar, he then came up with the theory of “mimicry” or mimetic analogy. Bates had no formal scientific position so he became very discouraged because people looked down on his theories. He wanted to write a book about his travels and about his descriptions of his collections. His book focused on the similarities of the butterflies that he discovered at the Amazon. He noticed the mimicry was found in areas that were close by. The ranges of butterflies also determined the range of the mimicry. He also found that species that were not the same also resembled each other. He also noticed how many of the species developed characteristics in order to help hide them from predators. Also many species mimicked other animals that were very harmful in an attempt to protect themselves. Henry Bates never did return to the dangerous jungle but he managed to finish and publish his book about his travels and his findings. Science has built on it ever since naming it one of the best books to be written. Without his discoveries, the world today would still believe that some species that resemble poisonous or dangerous species are the same species. Mimicry from different species would not had been discovered.