Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892), was a British naturalist who became known for his studies on mimicry in insect behavior. Mimicry is the ability of a species to resemble other species or its surroundings. One type of mimicry, Batesian mimicry, was named after Bates. Batesian mimicry occurs when a harmless species (the mimic) looks like a species (the model) that is dangerous or annoying to its predators. The mimic species is protected from its predators only by its visual resemblance to the model species.
Bates was born in Leicester, England, on Feb. 8, 1825. He spent 11 years in South America and collected about 14,000 insect specimens. More than half of these specimens were new discoveries. He first traveled to Brazil in 1848 with his friend Alfred Russel Wallace, who was also a noted naturalist. Bates described his exploration of the Amazon Basin in his book The Naturalist on the River Amazons (1863). Bates’s studies of insect behavior and adaptation supported the theory of evolution proposed by Wallace and also by Charles Darwin. According to this theory, animals evolve through natural selection, a process by which those individuals that are best suited to their environment are more likely to survive. He died on Feb. 16, 1892.
