Henry Walter Bates FRS FLS,
FGS (8 February 1825 in
Leicester – 16 February 1892 in London) was an English
naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of
mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the
rainforests of the
Amazon with
Alfred Russel Wallace, starting in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection on the return voyage when his ship caught fire. When Bates arrived home in 1859 after a full eleven years, he had sent back over 14,712 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were new to science. Bates wrote up his findings in his best-known work,
The Naturalist on the River Amazons.