Items11The creator’s order
  1. 1Maria Sibylla MerianMaria Sibylla MerianBorn Apr 2, 1647Insects and the plants they fed on Merian’s 1705 book on Suriname grew out of notes and drawings she made there. She showed different stages of an insect’s life together with its food plant. The pictures let readers follow a transformation and see the relationship between an insect and a plant on…0
  2. 2Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von HumboldtBorn Sep 14, 1769Plant geography in the Andes Humboldt and botanist Aimé Bonpland recorded plants and measurements during their travels in tropical America. Their 1807 essay used a diagram of the Andes to place plant names at different elevations. It made the distribution of plants across a mountain something…0
  3. 3Jeanne Villepreux-PowerJeanne Villepreux-PowerBorn Sep 25, 1794How the paper nautilus makes its egg case In Sicily, Villepreux-Power observed living argonauts rather than relying on empty shells. Her account showed that the female makes the shell-like egg case herself. Keeping the animal in view while it went about its life helped settle a question that a…0
  4. 4Charles DarwinCharles DarwinBorn Feb 12, 1809Mockingbirds from different islands Darwin kept track of where he collected Galápagos mockingbirds and noticed that birds from different islands differed slightly. John Gould later confirmed that the collection contained three species. Darwin’s notes show him asking how closely related birds could…0
  5. 5Henry David ThoreauHenry David ThoreauBorn Jul 12, 1817First blooms in Concord Thoreau recorded when plants began flowering around Concord, Massachusetts, in the 1850s. Researchers comparing his dates with modern surveys found that plant groups differed in how well they shifted flowering times as temperatures rose. The plants that tracked temperature…0
  6. 6Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel WallaceBorn Jan 8, 1823Birds on opposite sides of a strait Wallace found birds on Bali that he didn’t encounter during months of collecting on nearby Lombok. He used comparisons like this one to identify a boundary between animal communities with different geographic affinities. The line named for him helps explain why…0
  7. 7Joseph GrinnellJoseph GrinnellBorn Feb 27, 1877A record of where Yosemite mammals lived Grinnell and his colleagues recorded animals along a route that climbed through Yosemite and across the Sierra Nevada. A later team retraced the survey and found that about half of the small-mammal species it studied had shifted at least one end of their…0
  8. 8Margaret Morse NiceMargaret Morse NiceSong sparrows as individuals Nice recognized individual song sparrows by their colored leg bands and followed them across breeding seasons. She could connect where each bird lived with the fate of its nests and family. Her account of territory showed how defending a patch could help a pair raise…0
  9. 9Aldo LeopoldAldo LeopoldBorn Jan 11, 1887Spring events in southern Wisconsin Leopold recorded when plants flowered and migratory birds arrived around his family’s Wisconsin retreat. His daughter Nina Leopold Bradley later kept similar records in the same area. The comparison showed that some events, including the first blooms of forest…0
  10. 10Jane GoodallJane GoodallBorn Apr 3, 1934Toolmaking in wild chimpanzees At Gombe, Goodall watched David Greybeard and other chimpanzees use plant stems to fish for termites. She also saw them strip leaves from twigs before using them. Recording that preparation showed that wild chimpanzees could make a tool as well as use one.0