The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth

by Richard Conniff

The story of bold adventurers who risked death to discover strange life forms in the farthest corners of planet Earth.

Beginning with Linnaeus, a colorful band of explorers made it their mission to travel to the most perilous corners of the planet and bring back astonishing new life forms. They attracted followers ranging from Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the White House floor, to twentieth-century doctors who used their knowledge of new species to conquer epidemic diseases. Acclaimed science writer Richard Conniff brings these daredevil "species seekers" to vivid life. Alongside their globe-spanning tales of adventure, he recounts some of the most dramatic shifts in the history of human thought. At the start, everyone accepted that the Earth had been created for our benefit. We weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began, we couldn't classify species, and we didn't understand the causes of disease. But all that changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth—and our place within it.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Nature, Biology, Natural History, Animals

480 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2010

About the author

Richard Conniff, a Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the National Magazine Award, is the author most recently of House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth. He writes for Smithsonian and National Geographic and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a former commentator on NPR's All Things Considered. His other books include The Natural History of the Rich, Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time, and The Species Seekers. He lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Preeti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I'd been wanting to read it ever since I heard about it, which must have been around two years ago when I read my first Richard Conniff book, Swimming with the Piranhas at Feeding Time. First of all, let me attempt to explain the rating. For the information and learning, I think this book deserves five stars. I'm giving it four because it kind of started dragging a bit for me in the middle - but I blame that entirely on myself rather than the book. Everything was interesting enough but I think I was salivating at the thought of the other books piled up in my room that were waiting to be read so this one almost started moving too slowly. But then I got back into it and it was fascinating. So I'll say it should be 4.5 stars, how about that?

Overall, as I said, this book was extremely informative. I learned a lot! - which, I won't lie, I'll probably forget soon, if I haven't forgotten already. The book explores the history of, uh, natural history - essentially the adventurers, explorers, collectors, scientists, etc., who pursued the discovery of wildlife from the time of Linnaeus (mid-1700s), the father of the taxonomic system, up to about the early to mid-1900s.

You can apply this quote to the rest of the book:

Discovering new species wasn’t about collecting “the refuse of nature” but its wonders […] Each new species held the dazzling potential to reveal the secrets of life itself.” (p31)

One thing I loved was the subtle humor Conniff intersperses throughout the book. Also the tidbits and fact-lets that tied different sections together, or connected with modern day events/pop culture, were really fun and interesting to read.
______

As I was reading, I noted down choice quotes and a bunch of thoughts I had to accompany them, so I'll present them as the rest of my review. I recommend this book for natural history buffs; people interested in science, wildlife, and nature; and biology/zoology nerds.

(Note: These are presented, for the most part, in the order of seeing them in the book, which mostly follows a chronological order. Be forewarned: it is a long list. Also, a → denotes a new thought and/or quote.)

→ What counts as a discovery? Just white/Western men going to places to "discover" things already known? The distinction lies in spreading the information to the world, examining, classifying, etc.

Discovery isn't just a matter of being the first person to lay eyes on some odd duck of an animal. You must also recognize that there’s something different about the thing you are eyeing – and explain in print just how and why it’s different, so people elsewhere in the world can understand. […] Discovery is often a social and collaborative enterprise. (p35)

→ John James Audubon was a slave owner! This stands out to me because he was a revered ornithologist and has a big organization named after him. But I guess if only the inherently good people were to become famous and have important things named after them, nothing would ever have a name!

→ The hypocrisy of many of these people was astounding. Though at the same time, I wasn’t surprised. It was the times they lived in. (Which does not necessarily excuse their behavior, conduct, actions, etc.)

→ LOLs abound:

In the 1840s, a British magazine recommended that shell collecting was "particularly suited to ladies" because "there is no cruelty in the pursuit" and the shells are "so brightly clean, so ornamental to a boudoir.

Riiight -

Or at least it seemed that way, because dealers and field collectors often went to great lengths to remove any trace of the shell's former inhabitant. (p79)

The poor wimmins, who like pretty, shiny things, give them some shells, make ‘em happy. No cruelty there, not in forcing animals out of their homes or in some cases, their bodies, and killing them!

→ I became a fan of Rumphius, who seemed to actually love animals and plants, not just the race of discovering the most species. He called out "covetousness and pomp" among collectors. Said objects have could have special power only of found by oneself or as a gift but not when "bought with money." So this bit was interesting:

(In one of the stranger twists of literary history, Edgar Allan Poe would later get Rumphius’s philosophy backward, describing him as ‘a fool’ who once gave ‘a thousand pounds sterling for one of the first discovered specimens’ of the Venus dione. Even more strangely, the error occurred in the only commercially successful book Poe published in his lifetime. The Conchologist’s First Book was a school text Poe edited and improved based on a British volume.) (p81)

Terrible to read about all the misfortune he suffered and then having to sell he best part of his collection! (To the 1%, no less.) H died an unpublished author, though his works gained traction afterwards. So sad!

→ When tempted to think of the simple-mindedness, the stupidity, the naïveté, of these old naturalists, this is a good reminder:

"But the questions are simple now only because they have been answered," the twentieth-century paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson once reminded readers. "Every answer was contrary to the accumulated lore of all the millenniums before 1700. They required not only the rejection of some of the fondest beliefs of mankind but also the development of fundamentally new ways of thinking and of an apparatus for scientific interpretation." (p94)

At the same time, it's great to consider that some people were going against the tide, and instead of trying to mold nature to their previously held ideas, were trying to create new theories.

→ America has always liked things big:

For the United States, the "mammoth" had set loose the characteristic nineteenth-century America delight in things boisterous and big, helping to create a national sense of identity and self-confidence. (p109)

→ Early anti-science sentiment:

The social atmosphere was Old Disharmony. A local schoolteacher directed the full blast of snout-faced early American anti-intellectualism at the naturalists and their specimens: “tell me what benefit will arise from their work to the present and even the future generations,” she demanded in a letter. “This is the case with all Scientific people. Their knowledge is not only useless (because there is no application to it) but hurtful; it carries the mind astray, in fact it is false knowledge.” (p133)

Love that this ties in towards the end of the book as Conniff discusses all the diseases that were eradicated due to this “useless” knowledge!

→ Well!:

The notion of innate white superiority predominated even in the most progressive intellectual circles. Thomas Jefferson regarded blacks as irredeemably debased. He lamented the absence of a proper natural history of the race and wrote, “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both mind and body.” (This was years before the slave Sally Hemings would becoming his likely mistress and mother of several of his children.) (p176)

→ Fuck me, this is our history (and by "our" I mean the human race in general):

At times, however, the consequences of such thinking came all too visibly to the surface. Robert Schomburgk was a German naturalist best known for discovering Victoria regia, a waterlily with great round leaves like serving platters. He happened to be at Anegada, the northernmost of the Virgin Islands, in 1831, when a passing Spanish slaver, the Restauradora, hit a reef and sank in shallow water. When he passed the spot soon after, “the clear and calm sea” revealed “numerous sharks, rockfish and barracuta … diving in the hold where the human carcases were still partly chained, to tear their share from the bodies of the unfortunate Africans." (p177)

→ The length that some people - "scientists" – went, to try to distinguish between races as different species was absurd! Common knowledge even in the 1800s was that different species can't produce fertile offspring. But clearly interracial relationships in humans were producing fertile offspring. So this one dude, Samuel G. Morton, tried to prove that this happens in the animal world as well, between different species.

→ Slave owners who tried to prove that the black race was a different, and inferior, species. No conflict of interest there!

→ Science was used to try to justify this, not the "dogmatism" of religion. But a clergyman "provided the most rigorous argument against the Morton camp, defending scientific truth and (for once) religion" - John Bachman. He avoided making religious arguments but implemented scientific methods used to distinguish species: bone count, structure of parts such as the larynx. He also talked about domestic cattle which had a large variety of skull types yet were considered one species, so why was that used as a way to distinguish different races as different species?
This is what he faced:

His Hippocratic oath did not keep Josiah Nott from voicing his wish to “kill of[f] Bachman,” to “skin Bachman,” to see him “cut up into sausage meat.” After what he deemed a particularly effective riposte, he wrote of Bachman, “I really feel as if a viper had been killed in the fair garden of science, and I hope his death will be a warning to all such blasphemies against God’s laws” – the laws, that is, that made blacks a separate, inferior species, and keeping them as slaves the work of righteousness. (p190)

→ Then came the part about Frederick Douglass who was awesome. Why have I not read more about him yet?

→ Awesome to read about how enthusiastic people were about everything from gorillas to seaweed to infusoria (minute aquatic creatures including ciliates, protozoa, and single-celled algae). For example, there was such a thing as pteridomania, “the madness for collecting and keeping ferns.”

→ Taken out of context, this is hilarious:

"Science and learning in Washington? I should as soon expect to see them flourish within the purlieu of Newgate" (the notorious London prison). - George Ord, a nose in the air ornithologist (p199)

→ When reading about Alfred Russel Wallace's loss of innumerable amount of species, notes, drawings, etc., I actually felt his pain. All that work gone because of a huge ship fire. In his own words:

”How many times, when almost overcome by the ague [malaria], had I crawled into the forest and been rewarded by some unknown and beautiful species! How many places, which no European foot but my own had trodden, would have been recalled to my memory by the rare birds and insects they had furnishes to my collection! How many weary days and weeks had I passed, upheld only by the fond hope of bringing home many new and beautiful forms from those wild region... And now everything was gone." (p254)

This is especially worse when thinking that if he had had his specimens he might have come to the realization of the theory of evolution much sooner.

→ The emergence of the theory of evolution, independently reached by both Darwin and Wallace, was fascinating. I'd only read about it in not much detail in science classes throughout school but this was so cool to know how it all went down. And poor Wallace did get the short end of the stick. How many remember his name? No, when you think of evolution you think of Darwin. But then again, you do have to caveat that with the fact that Darwin had been working on this theory for years, had the manuscript, and had done tons of research to back the idea:

He didn't just supply the mechanism, the how, of evolution, which he and Wallace had both discovered; his painstaking work on barnacles, pigeons, and a vast array of other species collected by naturalists over the previous century, combined with his reputation from the Beagle voyage, made the idea credible. (p279)

Also:

Reading the copy Darwin sent to him in New Guinea, Wallace was plainly thrilled: “Mr. Darwin had given the world a new science, and his name should, in my opinion, stand above that of every philosopher of ancient or modern times.” He seems to have felt no twinge of envy or possessiveness about the idea that would bring Darwin such fame. (Nor for that matter, did fame bring the reclusive Darwin much joy.) (p281)

Ah, but you can't say Wallace was without fault:

Wallace behaved much more typically, the Mearnes write, when he “claimed the glory by right of his superior ornithological knowledge, and as employer of his team of assistants” for having discovered Wallace’s Standardwing (Semioptera wallacii), a new bird of paradise, and the only species in its genus. It happened in late 1858 or early 1859, just as the natural selection story was unfolding back home. In his book, The Malay Archipelago, Wallace credited his field assistant Ali for collecting the bird, but immediately added (the Mearnses’ italics), “I now saw that I had got a great prize, no less than a completely new form of the Bird of Paradise.” Later in the book, he described it simply as “discovered by myself.” (p282)

→ Ha!:
"But evolutionary thinking inevitably struck those of weaker faith as an assault on religion, much as it does today."
Compared to Charles Kingsley, who wrote to Darwin:

"If you be right, I must give up much that I have believed & written,” Kingsley wrote, in a letter thanking Darwin for an advance copy of the book. “In that I care little… Let us know what is… I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful… as to believe that he required a fresh act of intervention” to fill every gap caused by the natural processes “he himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.” (p280)

→ Of course, we keep in mind:

Great discoveries rarely occur in the romantic way we like to imagine - the bolt from the blue, the lone genius running through the streets crying, “Eureka!” Like evolution itself, science more often advances by small steps, and with different lines converging on the same solution. It is a social enterprise, and whether we like it or not, thoroughly hierarchical. Ideas pile up in the air, the cumulative product of illiterate native hunters, virtuous and vainglorious field naturalists, and inglorious taxonomists, almost all of them soon forgotten. (p283)

→ Hard to draw the line between terrible behavior and thoughts of naturalists/explorers especially in the cases where their actions have saved species. For example, Armand David was an explorer and missionary in China in the mid-nineteenth century, and he came upon a species of deer that had been hunted out from the wild but a small population of 120 animals survived in a hunting park. After some attempts he was able to get hold of two skins. "In the ensuing excitement about the 'new' species, French an British diplomats pressed the imperial estates to release live animals for shipment to Europe." A breeding population was established in London, while in China the last deer at some point was shot and eaten. In 1985, a breeding population was shipped back to Beijing and now the species numbers almost 1,000 animals in their native habitat.

→ Loved this bit:

It is the subtext to those endless drawers of carefully arranged specimens in the end around the world: Someone had collected each specimen; killed it; skinned it; stuffed it, set it, or put it in preservative; pencil–scratched a label for it; carried it cross–country; shipped it home; studied it; and classified it – and then repeated this ritual over over, countless millions of times. For each specimen, someone had gone hungry and sleepless. Someone alone in a remote and hostile territory had wept. Someone had perhaps drowned, been murdered, suffered malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, or typhus. Someone had certainly cursed and complained, though not so much as we might expect. Someone had said, "Hunh!" And someone had rejoiced. (p334)

→ A chapter on women species seekers! Thank you, Richard Conniff!

→ Found this bit particularly humorous:
Women were *of course* too delicate, dainty, unintelligent, uninterested, etc. for science and particularly, for exploring. Also, society called on them to "'sigh in alarm at the least hint of sex or reproduction,' [Lynn Barber] or almost any other aspect of the anatomy. Indeed, social convention required sparing them even the near occasion for such alarm." When the British Association for the Advancement of Science finally allowed women to attend its meetings in the 1830s, it "barred them from a session where papers were to be read on the racy topic of reproduction in marsupials. The very word 'mammal' was fraught with difficulty. In one public address, Richard Owen tactfully characterized the class Mammalia as 'nourishing their young in a peculiar way' and thus avoided shocking women in his audience who might not otherwise know what their breasts were for." (p340)

→ I would love to read/learn more about Mary Kingsley, who was awesome yet fell prey to similar sentiments of the time: white and black as separate species (and black as inferior), women intellectually inferior to men, and a variety of others.

→ Gah! As expected this chapter pissed me off! But happy it was included, though it was quite (too) short. This is to be expected, since women weren't really present in this field during history.

→ The section on diseases was fascinating. You (or at least, I) don't realize that "the solution" to eradicating these diseases "depended on having precise knowledge - both taxonomic and behavioral - of the species involved." (For example, various species of mosquitoes, worms, etc.) "Moreover, it often involved multiple species, including the bacterium or other organism that causes the disease, plus one or more host species that serve as a reservoir for this microbe, and a vector species to deliver it to the human victim. As Manson put it, 'the etiology of disease' - that is, the study of its origins and causes - 'is but a branch of natural history.'" (p357)

[Gianna Minton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a biologist nerd, I enjoyed this book and the gaps it filled in my knowledge about various collectors and taxonomists in the late 19th century. I have always loved and somewhat idolised this period in history during which so many discoveries were made that changed our thinking about the natural world and our place in it. However, this book also made me painfully aware of how Eurocentric our thinking was, and has been until VERY recently. The impacts of 'colonial' science are still being felt today, and it is only really in the past few years that scientists around the world are seriously addressing the arrogance and sense of entitlement that drives this mindset.

[Panayoti Kelaidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 464 page tome that attempts to cover “age of discovery” of new taxa since Linnaeus should probably be forgiven for its omissions: I have had a little trouble doing so, although (in the end) I have to admit I think this book is a wonderful account, spellbinding at times, that contains lots of information that was new to me. The book is really a series vignettes focusing on individual scientists from the late 18th Century down to our own. They were picked to demonstrate the many challenges that confront “species seekers” in every facet of their endeavor. Many themes weave through the book: the principal one, perhaps, is how Science—perhaps better described as “Natural History”--became a passionate pursuit of many middle and upper class men (and women) in the late 18 and 19th Centuries. This passion was fueled by the exciting discovery of new taxa.
Starting with Linnaeus, whom Conniff paints with an expressionistic brush—acknowledging his achievement (and providing the context for that achievement), while dwelling rather lovingly and at length on Linnaeus’ sometimes grandiloquent personality: we get quite the laundry list demonstrating his robust egotism. The theme of how much the need for the expression of personality—and advancing one’s career (often at the expense of others), forms one of the leitmotifs of the book. Seeking species is apparently not just about expanding the knowledge of Mankind so much as much as it is a product of individuals grappling with the unknown—often obsessively, but using discovery to further their personal agenda.
After Linnaeus, Conniff focuses much of the book on a cluster of interactions between competing scientists. For instance: John James Audubon, Constantine Rafinesque, Alexander Wilson whose interactions make for compelling reading as each seeks to beat the other in acquiring new bird taxa in the rapidly disappearing American wilderness. The specter of Charles Ord provides the mold for “closet naturalist” dark antagonist in the book— who as President of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences exerts all his powers to thwart Audubon and Thomas Say among others. The role of evil bureaucrat is assumed in Britain a few decades later by John E. Gray, keeper of Zoology at the British Museum who does everything he can to thwart the careers of the likes of William Bates, Alfred Russell Wallace and other field biologists whose accomplishments he belittles while pluming his nest with their specimens.
The obstacles, frustrations and failures of naturalists is yet another theme running through the book: Conniff seems to relish relating the manner in which scientists suffer and often expire in the field. He even adds a five page “Necrology” as a sort of appendix to the book which lists how over 70 scientists met an untimely death in pursuit of their work. The list is far from complete—gleaning through it I noticed Reginald Farrer, the monumental botanist of China who died on a plant hunting expedition in Borneo, is missing as is Captain James Cook who died in battle with Hawaiians. Cook’s explorations throughout the Pacific were focused in large part on scientific exploration. I sought in vain for him name...
The book is largely focused on Zoology—the very heart of the book recounts the complex relationship of Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, and their co-discovery of evolution—showing how and why Darwin came away with most of the recognition for that discovery.
The complex drama surrounding the discovery of the great primates—chimpanzees at first, but the even greater drama surrounding the finding and naming of gorillas—comprise another major set-piece of the book, with many lurid digressions that explore the deep layers of racism that characterize those times. And perhaps our's.
The final chapters are more rushed: the vast exploration of China in the 19th century is glossed over, or rather, concentrated in a single chapter on Pere David, the unstoppable French monk whose extraordinary zeal and accomplishment was just the beginning of exploration in the Eastern Himalayas: Père Jean Marie Delavay, his fellow countryman and peer, barely gets a mention. And what of Augustine Henry? George Forrest? Frank Kingdon Ward? Frank Meyer? The what of the dozens of other explorers who risked life and limb and brought back tens of thousands of specimens from the same region? They were primarily botanists, or horticulturists. David’s story will have to encapsulate their vast drama.
Just as Walter Rothschild understandably takes center stage later in this book: his Gargantuan amassing of zoological collections have been wonderfully described by Miriam Rothschild, his niece—Conniff’s chapter on Walter is basically a Reader’s Digest condensation of that book—and he does manage a mention of Charles Rothschild whose discovery of the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis) did, after all, provide the key to the bubonic plague. But what about Lionel Rothschild? He was apparently not worth mentioning since he was enormously successful not just as Banker but as a politician (he was the first Jewish member of Parliament, and even ran (and won) unopposed for his seat in subsequent elections.) But as the creator of Exbury, one of the grandest of British gardens. He was a key member of the Syndicate who funded the explorations of many of the leading biologists who collected herbarium specimens and seed throughout China in the 19th and early 20th Century. A large percentage of the Chinese flora was named from these expeditions, and many plants described from Exbury. But horticultural exploration—which funded many of the most productive expeditions—barely merits mention in the book. Hardly worth the mention, perhaps.
The final chapters are focused on Medicine—particularly the search for the cause of Malaria and Yellow Fever: although the discovery of new species is not so much a focus here as the discovery of the biology of these species, and how they interact with other organisms—the collaborative drama of these chapters—and the personal dramas of the protagonists—are spellbinding reading. It’s worth reading the book for this section alone. Although it is perhaps and adumbration of how species seeking has been utterly eclipsed by the Laboratory, or the "Gene Jockies" of the present day.
The book brilliantly underscores how millions of lives have depended on the discoveries of the “species seekers” and every corner of our lives has been touched by them.
Despite the inevitable omissions, this is a wonderful book, written with flair that makes for a compelling “read”. I believe any intelligent reader would become absorbed by it and learn a great deal: I certainly have!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. There were many unsettling passages, but documenting the categorization phase of our understanding of life on earth is one of the reasons I can't get enough of natural history museums.

Something I learned from this book was that pre-Darwinian collectors tended to find one or a few examples of each species because the prevailing theory was that creation was recent, and Noah's flood was even more so. Once Darwin and Wallace presented the theory of natural selection, it was realized that variations existed from island to island and around each bend in the river, something which primitive hunters had never lost touch with.

Something I rediscovered from this book had to do with Carroll and Lear's nonsense verse. In his twenties, Alfred Wallace had spent a few years collecting butterflies and other species in South America. When he finally set sail for home, the small ship he was on caught fire. The lifeboats were in such bad shape that the cook was ordered to bring cork from the galley to help patch them. Though eventually saved, the leaky lifeboats may have inspired "The Jumblies":

"Their heads were green, and their hands were blue, and they went to sea in a sieve."

I have reconnected with that wonderful Nonesuch album!

[Armanda Nemeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es un libro entretenido, interesante y, en pocas palabras, fabuloso.
Te lleva a vivir las aventuras de varios de los naturalistas que forjaron con sudor y sangre las bases de las ciencias naturales modernas, desde los grandes y conocidos titanes de la historia natural hasta los olvidados recolectores/guías nativos sin los que varios de de los exploradores no hubieran sobrevivido siquiera o no hubieran logrado capturar las maravillas que llevaron a casa en barriles de alcohol o en cajas de madera alcanforada.
Divertido, ilustrativo, ilustrado y con 25 páginas de referencias bibliográficas que le dan el toque maravilloso para enamorar a cualquiera.
Definitivamente lo volveré a leer...
-
It is an entertaining, interesting and, in short, fabulous book.
Takes you to live the adventures of many of the naturalists that built with blood and sweat the basis of modern natural sciences, from the great and renowned titans of natural history to the forgotten native collectors/guides without whom some of the explorer wouldn't have even survived or wouldn't have managed to capture the wonders they took home in alcohol barrels or camphorated boxes.
Funny, illustrative, illustrated and bearing 25 pages of bibliographic references that give it the marvelous touch to make anyone fall in love.
I will definitely read it again...

[Grrlscientist · Rating 5 out of 5]

The public is endlessly fascinated by the possibility that there might be life on other planets. What might those life forms look like? Might they have DNA? How might they behave? Might there even be intelligent life somewhere “out there”? Despite the fact that some people have turned their eyes to the stars in their search for life, new species are still being discovered here on Earth nearly every day. When scientists first began formally collecting, describing and cataloging the world’s species, just 4,400 animals and 7,700 plants were known. By the end of the 19th century, there were more than 415,600 described species. Today, more than 2 million species have been described, and scientists estimate that there are yet another 50 million species on our little blue planet, awaiting discovery.

But how did this age of discovery start? Who were these intrepid people who traveled to the remotest places of this planet in search of new life forms? What does it actually mean to “discover” a new species? These questions motivated science writer Richard Conniff to write The species seekers: heroes, fools and the mad pursuit of life on Earth (W. W. Norton & Co.; 2010).

But locating and identifying new life forms is not a new pastime: it had been an ongoing passion, an occupation that is part of what makes us uniquely human. This colourful tale begins at a time when early gentlemen naturalists were risking life and limb in their quest to discover all of God’s creation and bring it back home so others could also admire God’s handiwork. The book begins in the mid 1700s, when these early naturalists realised that “Adam’s task” of naming species was far from completed. This is where Carl Linnæus enters the story.

Before Linnaeus, naturalists had no language or methodology for discussing the tide of new species. They couldn’t agree on how to name the plants and animals in their own backyards. So how could they possibly make sense of species at the opposite ends of the Earth? Finding the answer would take an act of heroic audacity, and Linnaeus saw himself as just such a hero. [p. 38]

Even though Linnæus believed God created each and every species in its present form, his idea (published in 1735 in his book Systema Naturæ) that all life could be arranged into an interrelated hierarchy was revolutionary. Not only did Linnæus’s taxonomic classification scheme — kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species — provide a formal process for giving each living thing a unique name, it also triggered yet more exploration where new species were the treasure being sought.

But agreeing on how to name this influx of newly discovered species wasn’t the only challenge facing naturalists. It was difficult to store representatives of each species as reference materials. Collections of live animals were difficult to keep and even dead animals were short-lived: each mounted specimen lasted only three or four years before it finally succumbed to decay. However, the discovery of the preservative properties of arsenic (usually in the form of arsenical soap) in the late 18th century, sparked a revolution in taxidermy. Arsenic use became so widespread that by 1830, naturalists “no longer regarded taxidermy as a problem but considered it a technique” (p. 163). Arsenic revolutionized the study of natural history because, for the first time, permanent “type specimens” representing every known species could be vouchered in a museum with reference to its formal published description. This made it possible to study large collections of animals from near and far, allowing naturalists to identify patterns in the vast array of the world’s biodiversity. This, in turn, provided biological thinkers with important clues into species variation and how these variations reflected geographic distribution and evolution.

The theories of evolution and biogeography have repeatedly been tested; providing important and useful insights for other fields of study, particularly medicine. In the late 1800s, medical doctors began to apply their knowledge about natural history, biogeography and species to the practical challenges of conquering insect-borne infectious diseases such as yellow fever, typhus and malaria. Unfortunately, such ideas were ridiculed for many years to come by those with an insufficient knowledge of natural history.

As a modern day “species seeker” who uses DNA techniques and phylogenetic methodologies to identify new species and to reconstruct evolutionary trees of birds, I was disappointed that the author didn’t include a chapter about state-of-the-art systematics. Even though the writing was somewhat uneven in places, this book is entertaining and very readable. The cast of characters — quirky, arrogant, amusing, ambitious, insightful — provide a captivating narrative for how science really works. I was especially entertained by stories of platypuses, electric eels, and even by a fish species with bullet-proof scales.

Conniff expertly weaves tales of conflict, adventure and discovery together with advances in scientific methodologies to show how they led to dramatic shifts in the history of human thought. The Species Seekers is meticulously researched (with extensive chapter notes, bibliography and index) and is deftly written with a sly wit that will delight and inform, whether you have a casual interest or lifelong commitment to either history or the sciences.

NOTE: Originally published at scilogs (Nature Network) on 24 March 2011.

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is either a very naive book, or a blithe one. Which isn't to say it doesn't have some entertaining pieces.

The problem is with the set up. It reminds me a great deal of the current controversy over Steven Weinberg's recent book "To Explain the World," which unapologetically and without argument takes an old-fashioned view that science is progressive and disconnected from culture: that the only science that matters is contemporary science and other forms of knowledge can simply be dismissed without bothering to ask how they might have fitted into the society of the time.

Coniff does the same here, with regard to a much less ballyhooed science, taxonomy rather than physics. He argues that the explosion of interest in taxonomy during the 18th and 219th centuries was a simple reflection of Linnaeus having founded the correct system for understanding biological diversity: it was simply science working itself out.

Of course, this view does not do justice to the complexity of taxonomic practice, nor its entangled history with colonialism and agriculture. Conniff seems aware of these connections, and mentions them briefly here and there, but never really delves into them. Indeed, colonialism is mostly one in a single chapter. That's where I see the connection to Weinberg--Conniff knows there's more information out there, but just isn't interested.

A lack of interest seems to be a key to this book, surprising given its structure and focus on personalities. Conniff discusses a number of naturalists across two hundred years, many of whom sacrificed a great deal to go out into the world and collect what seemed like insignificant creatures. But he never seems to come to terms with the obsessive quality--I guess that's in part because, although the subtitle has it that some of these men were fools, they were all, in his view, following a scientific prerogative, which obviates any need for explanation. I can't help think of Bruce Chatwin's line from Utz, about an article he never wrote, which was meant to "be part of a larger work on the psychology--or psychopathology--of the compulsive collector." This book could have contributed to that theme, too, but instead Conniff was content to skim through stories.

Now, admittedly, some of the stories are great ones. And he spends a lot of time with my favorite nineteenth century naturalist H. W. Bates, which made the book for me. I know Conniff mostly as a magazine writer--indeed, I have used one of his articles for each of my own two books, a great one on fire ants and one that stretched a bit too far on the yeti--and that training is obvious here. The overall narrative is rather loose--its about the filling of the Linnaean system--with each chapter more or less focusing on some one individual. (Bates and Wallace get more than one chapter.) By the middle of the nineteenth century the book necessarily wanders, as taxonomy becomes intertwined with ecology and evolution, and the pure hunt for new species is relegated somewhat, but Conniff never really confronts these changes, or that his loose framework is still not loose enough to contain the story he wants to tell.

But it's not surprising he would ignore that, since he also ignores how the stories he tells undermines the claims that he wants to make. Conniff is insistent that there was something special--better--about the scientific approach of European naturalists (for the most part he considers those from the UK, with a few Americans tossed in), as compared to that of native peoples. By the end, he would write (318), "But though it is not fashionable to say so, the rest of the world had nothing to match the systematic approach to nature that Western science had been developing and refining since the time of Linnaeus and Buffon."

Except that, repeatedly, the naturalists had to rely on natives, to do the work, to show them where the animals were, to show them the best time to collect those animals. This is a book about personalities that never bothers to engage with what the people were actually doing on a day to day basis. Very odd in that sense. Another sign of the acute lack of curiosity that went into the book.

Disappointing.

[Elizabeth Silverman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim, the title intrigued me and I've enjoyed classifying the species that live around my neighborhood. Luckily, my gamble paid off and I finished The Species Seekers in very little time, charmed and enchanted. I ended the book only wishing to read more, so I'm pretty sure that another Conniff book will soon end up on my reading list.

The book chronicles a number of different researchers of the natural world, the outcomes of their stories, and to my delight the rapport between different scientific behemoths. The drama between Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace over the construction of evolutionary theory (and the mysterious Mr. Vestiges who preceded them) was wonderful and kept me at the edge of my seat (despite obviously knowing the outcome).

I had briefly read about a great number of these researchers in introductory science courses, but had always wondered about their personalities, interactions with fellow scientists, and more details about their discoveries. This book satisfied my curiosities.

I liked that Conniff addressed the issue of racism in the sciences (the bogus "science" of race and skull comparisons) as well as sexism within the field.
I was intrigued with his brief character studies interlaced with notable events and popular beliefs of the times. As a future physician, I enjoyed his discussion of the events that lead to the discovery of the cause of malaria and yellow fever. Even though naturalist's work was frowned upon and often considered a waste of time, their discoveries paved the way for a cure to these devastating diseases.

Conniff is a wonderful science writer, I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

[Andrew Updegrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Species Seekers is based upon two main themes. The first is that the people that became obsessed (or sought their fortunes) by discovering new species were a remarkably strange and interesting lot, and Conniff substantiates this contention amply through the scores of fascinating sketches he provides throughout The Species Seekers.

The second is that the stuffy academics that usually got the credit for new species (by being the first to describe them in the scientific literature) did not give the eccentric discoverers their due. Indeed, they often treated them with disdain.

In the course of developing his case, Conniff also takes us through the process and the individuals, from Linnaeus (and his predecessors) to the DNA researchers of the present, through which order has been brought to our understanding of the rich variety of flora and fauna with whom we share this earth.

Overall, it's an interesting and enjoyable read, although from time to time it's possible to get the feeling that Conniff is something of a collector of oddballs, pasting one after another into the narrative likes stamps into a collector's album whether or not they advance the main narrative. But that's not usually the case, and where Conniff is on target, his style is a delight (to see what I mean, read the first page of the foreword, where he describes a Napoleanic era colonel dismounting to collect a beetle just before leading a cavalry charge).

Who is this book for? Anyone that enjoys a well written ramble through both history as well as natural history, illuminated through well-constructed biographical sketches.

[Sean Lyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, interwoven, and curiously compounding account of the heroes of the field of natural history. Filled with strong personalities, tropical parasites, and questionable ethical pursuits of knowledge, this book presents Conniff's impeccable research in a way that leads the reader into a complicated mire of admiration and reviling of these historical figures. As the species seekers pursue fame and fortune, a reader is prompted to inquire of their own motivations for how they live, work, and relate to themselves, their communities, and the natural world.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great mix of history, drama, and science. I loved how the author included the personal lives of some of history and science's most "important" people. This really showed how human we all really are. It was dense and hard at some parts, but I feel I am a more educated homo sapien after reading this. I was easily caught in the pages as the men and women in the book battled nature and themselves to help increase knowledge for the betterment of all humankind.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well-paced. Intriguing history of quirky and driven personalities.

[Bill Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connif looks at those that have travelled the world looking for new species. Many were interested in science but some collected for the sake of science with the closet scientists analyzing the specimens. In the mid 1700's, London had grown and natural history became an obsession of the British. Early thinkers such as Bacon and Newton demonstrated the value of experimentation in understanding the natural world, even though the religious sentiment at the time saw this as understanding God's works.

The book includes good treatments of the better known seekers such as Linnaeus, Cuvier, Banks, Bates, Hooker, Darwin and Wallace; but also others such as Rumphius, Charles Waterton, John Hunter, Thomas Say, Audubon, Paul Du Chaillu, who are less well remembered today.

The book finishes with the first work to understand the blood parasites that cause malaria and yellow fever.

The epilogue presents a perspective on the understanding of nature that has been had due to the seekers.

[Fede Berón · Rating 4 out of 5]

Precioso, un trabajo que podría considerarse definitivo para quienes como a mi nos interesa y necesitamos estos conocimientos para seguir expandiendo los horizontes a los que nos lleva la curiosidad y la pasión por comprender los procesos que esculpen la vida en este planeta a través de los milenios. Un relato minucioso, pero cercano, con sólidas bases de datos científicos que invitan a relacionar los grandes descubrimientos de la biología con sus correspondientes movimientos de pensamiento históricos y sociológicos. Desde los más icónicos y transitados temas como el racismo, hasta las más vergonzantes y desopilantes (a veces) miserias de la condición humana. Imperdible.

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved learning about the advancement of scientific knowledge through the adventures of Darwin, Bates, Kingsley, and other naturalists; but it's also heartbreaking to learn about the wealthy benefactors who supported sending naturalists across the globe just to collect specimens to add excitement and intrigue to their precious collections, in order to elevate their own social status. These activities also likely resulted in many of the issues we face today with invasive species. With that said, it was a great read about the history of discovering the natural world.

[Emma Joycen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who enjoys learning about animals and their habitats, this book was very entertaining, learning some backstories about the naturalists who started it all. All of the information is cited in the back of the book, and the way that each naturalist's story is told is fun, interesting, and often quite sassy. It dragged just a hair about 75% of the way through the book, but generally was well paced and fun to read. Also, the introduction, and many other parts of this book are laugh out loud hilarious!

[Chris Thorley · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting and covered a lot of ground. The formulation of the classification system. Early pre-Darwin naturalists to the scientists who contributed to the theory of evolution (obviously culminating in the finished theory from Darwin himself). How classification was used as a pretext for race related pseudo-science (and how these views were eventually challenged). The fact that the early naturalists always killed the animals in order to describe them makes slightly uncomfortable viewing, but has to be viewed as a product of the time.

[Rogue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good- easy to read, with lots of interesting anecdotes peppered throughout, and well written movement from topic to topic. I would have liked more on the female explorers of the day, as there was only a little of this mostly at the end. But otherwise, very interesting- and didn't solely focus on Darwin!

[Rick Sickelsmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should have expected it, but the methods of collection and the attitudes toward animals were too unsettling. I tried to plow through the book suppressing my distaste because those aspects were not meant to be the focus of the book. But I could not ameliorate the impact they were having on me.

[Cmorden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting biographical stories about people that played an important role by collecting samples of plants, birds, etc back when doing so was difficult and still trying to figure out how best to preserve them. Many of them died for their efforts!

[Reuben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting and sometimes funny look at the characters willing to risk their lives(and the lives of others) in the mad rush to discover new species!
animals, birds, funny, history, non-fiction, read, read-kindle, science

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book.

[Lauren R · Rating 3 out of 5]

for the length of this book, the colonialism and racism of the early naturalists could have been explored in far more depth instead of just pointed out briefly for the sake of doing so.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was familiar with a lot of this material but there were plenty of new, interesting stories here. Well written and engaging.

[Chris Leuchtenburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably most fascinating book that I read this year. The adventures and misadventures of the people who scoured the world in the 18th and 19th centuries seeking new species filled me with awe, admiration, dread, wonder and amazement. Wonderful quotes:

Linnaeus: "Oh what kind of marvelous animals we are, for whom everything else in the world is created. We are created out of a foaming drop of lust in a disgusting place. We are born in a canal between shit and piss. We are thrown head first in the world through the most contemptible triumphal gates." p. 42

"...This preference may explain his reputation, preeminent even by the colorful standards of nineteenth-century natural history, as an eccentric -- or as one biographer put it, a 'unique dodo'.

Waterton was the fourteenth generation of a family of landed gentry to live at Walton Hall, on an island in a lake in West Yorkshire. Among other genuine accomplishments, he turned the 260-acre estate into what is widely regarded as the world's first nature preserve. He also launched the earliest successful action to stop pollution, managing by 1853 to drive out a soap manufacturer who had set up shop next door." p. 153

Wallace upon his return via ship wreck to England from South America: "Oh beef-steaks and damson-tart, a paradise for hungry sinners." p. 255

Walter Rothschild: collected 300,000 bird skins, 200,000 birds' eggs, over 2 million butterflies and moths. "For much of his adult life, Walter kept 400 collectors actively working in all corners of the Earth.... That number does not include an additional 100 collectors specializing in fleas, because they worked mainly for Walter's younger brother Charles. (Charles almost matched Walter's passion for nature. Once, spotting a rare butterly out the window of a train, he pulled the emergency cord, and then ran back down the tracks to collect his prize.)" p. 323

Many citations of intriguing books/memoirs: John Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America, from the year 1772 to 1777. "...a picaresque adventure tale, tol on the ribald model of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones.

[Driftless · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a time of fanaticism and fervor. In the 19th century, enthused by tales of adventure and derring-do across the world, young men would sail across the globe, risking death from accident, disease, drowning or cannibals, searching for new discoveries. The goal was not new lands or territories - the continents had already been divvied up - but new forms of life. There was an intellectual zeal at the time that caused these men to weather incredible hardships in the quest to be the first white man to describe a new tree, quadruped or butterfly. Some would go on to fame and fortune, others would die of malaria or cholera, but all too often, after spending several years collecting thousands of specimens, taking copious notes, gathering loads of data, they would sail for home, maybe even getting within sight of the European coast, only to founder on the rocks and sink, losing all of the fruits of their labor. If they made it home alive, they would often make plans to return to the tropics and try again. In The Species Seekers, writer Richard Conniff tells the stories of these intrepid investigators.

Read the rest of my review at The Species Seekers.

[Skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting!!!

Fun facts (& thoughts):
1. We only discovered about 2 million species out of an estimated 50 million species here on Earth!
2. Sir Stamford Raffles was born to a slave trader father :O
3. There is microbial life in CLOUDS!!
4. Science isn't about eureka moments- everything builds upon each other! Ideas move back and forth.
5. While scientists then published journals- we now write blogs. They correspond through written letters- while us, emails.
6. Is there really nothing left to find and invent? Or are things too difficult or on a steeper stage? Ie. maybe everyone can paint but not everyone can invent a nanotech product... hmm
7.Was about to feel disappointed by the lack of women in the naturalist world and suddenly we have a (short) chapter addressing the issue! Sadly Beatrix Potter left the guarded male dominated scientific community and went on to write the Peter Rabbit series.
8. Everyone illustrated so beautifully back then?!?!?!?!?!


Faves: Loved the cheeky parts- the insert of a 'comic illustrations' of gators, and also how this one guy named a smelly small weed over a critic of his work. Hahaha.

[Clarissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very entertaining history of the search for plant and animal species mostly by European explorers, and especially by British ones. There were many fascinating stories about interesting and often eccentric individuals, and the wonderful creatures they discovered. The book also described the medical advances which were the result of the centuries of finding and cataloging/describing plants and animals. The evolution of the species seekers was also part of the evolution of the scientific thought process. At first people collected new species without thinking to be exact about where they had been found, or what they looked like in comparison to similar species. Conniff also writes about the history of the preservation of specimens that were collected, and how bad the early preservation techniques were. Often times explorers would travel to distant dangerous lands, and then after years of hard poorly paid labor, they would bring home the species they had collected, only to find that the specimens were devoured by bugs and mold when they returned to England.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

In short, this was an amazing book. Often, the world of pre-20th century naturalism is seen as the realm of stuffy victorian gentlemen, looking at dusty specimens through a magnifying glass. The truth is that while those stuffy gentlemen were part of it, there was far, far more.

This book focuses to a large extent on the personalities that drove the rush to identify and catalogue species in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Alfred Russel Wallace, James Audobon, Comte de Buffon, Carl Linnaeus, Mary Kinglsey, Charles Darwin (of course), and many other fascinating, and often eccentric, characters.

The writing is fantastic, lending the author's clear enthusiasm for nature and wry sense of humor to what could possible be a dry, inpenitrable read. I recommend this highly to anyone interested in the history of nature, biology, evolution, and science itself. Not to mention anyone interested in some, shall we say, odd characters...

[Theresa Leone Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Conniff, a writer for National Geographic and other publications, has apparently been all over the world, exploring and discovering lots of impressive facts about different species, and he writes in this book about all of the other scientists and would-be scientists, many of them quite fascinating, who have done the same. The book is a compilation of discoveries made, dating back even to Thomas Jefferson's time, and is a nice combination of history, ecology, biology, and whimsy. In 1758 Linnaeas listed 4,400 species in our world; today there are over two million. Mind boggling, and incredibly interesting, if you are into this kind of thing, to read about who found what where and when. An illuminating work, one that stresses the staggering importance of continued research if we are to truly understand biodiversity and the world in which we live. Highly recommend!