Biology

The term “aposematism” was first coined by the evolutionary biologist Edward Bagnall Poulton. It is derived from the Greek for “away” and “sign”, and relates to how insects may ward off predators by smell, or visual signals. Bright colours in adult insects have a role in sexual attraction but there was a debate as to why bright colours might be used in the non sexually reproductive larvae, and Alfred Russel Wallace proposed that bright colours could advertise the unpalatable nature of the caterpillars to experienced predators. Aposematic colour patterns are found throughout the insect world, from black and yellow-striped wasps to black and red, bitter-tasting ladybird beetles, or brightly coloured, poisonous tropical butterflies.

A parasite that lives externally on another animal, but does not kill it.

A parasite that lives externally on another animal and eventually kills it.

A Kleptoparasite is an animal that steal food, nesting material, or other resources from another animal. Kleptoparasitism may be intraspecific or interspecific.

Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was a British Geologist and author of Principles of Geology. He was close friend of Charles Darwin, but was never able to reconcile himself with the implications of evolutionary theory had for mankind's place in nature.

Lyell's Principles of Geology postulated that geological change was the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans, and it was this realisation of deep time that gave impetus to both Darwin's and Wallace's theories of evolution.

The evolutionary development and history of a species or higher taxonomic grouping of organisms. It is the connections between all groups of organisms as understood by ancestor/descendant relationships.

Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton, FRS (27 January 1856 – 20 November 1943) was a British evolutionary biologist who was a life-long advocate of natural selection.

Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. He is best known for independently proposing a theory of evolution due to natural selection that prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own theory.

Wallace was born into a poor English family living in Monmouthshire. He received little formal education, but read what ever he could, and attended public lectures in London in 1837. As a surveyor (1838-1843) he started collecting plants, and when he became a teacher in 1844 he became interested in the sciences and in particular the works of Thomas Malthus, Charles Lyell, and Robert Chambers.

He travelled to the Amazon (1848-1852) to collect insects which he sold to collectors back in the UK. From 1854-1862 he explored Malay Archipelago studying and collecting biological specimen for sale back in the UK. His Malay collection consisted of over 125,000 specimens. It was while in Malaya that he wrote to Charles Darwin about his views on Evolution, and on July 1 1858 Darwin presented a joint paper to the Linnaean Society outlining their independent conclusions.