1825–92, English naturalist and explorer. In 1848 he went with A. R. Wallace to Brazil, where he explored the upper Amazon, returning in 1859 with some 8,000 new zoological species. He was the first to state a plausible theory of mimicry. His great work was The Naturalist on the River Amazon (1863). From 1864, Bates was assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.
