The Fish That Took a Century to Name - Issue 55: Trust
▻http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/the-fish-that-took-a-century-to-name
On the morning of Friday Aug. 6, 1852, Alfred Russel Wallace was summoned to the deck of the brig Helen. The boat was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and Wallace had already been at sea for 26 days. He was used to hardship. He’d spent the previous four years in the Amazon rainforest, exploring uncharted territory and collecting natural history specimens for his own collection and for museums back home in England. The hold was filled with his valuable specimens—many were new to science and irreplaceable. The 29-year-old Welsh-born naturalist had even stowed several live specimens: there were parrots and parakeets, some monkeys, and a wild forest dog on board. The captain said to Wallace, “I’m afraid the ship’s on fire. Come and see what you think.” Ten months earlier, in the depths of (...)