Book reveals the lives of 7 forgotten Chilean naturalists who contributed to world science

Seven pioneering Chilean naturalists, some forgotten and even one who surpassed Charles Darwin in discoveries, are the protagonists of ‘Descifrar la naturaleza’ (Planeta, 2025), the book by Bárbara Tupper Baldwin that highlights the fundamental legacy of these South American explorers to biodiversity and global conservation policies. “There’s practically not even two lines written” about some of these figures, comments Tupper in an interview with EFE, highlighting his initial intention to make his book an exercise in “memory and gratitude.” The profiles of these scientists reveal their drive for curiosity, which transformed their vocation into a way of life that gave rise to “very interesting and some very harsh” stories, she points out.

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One of the emblematic cases is that of Luis Peña (1921-1995), the most important entomologist in the history of Chile, who did not even finish high school. “Everything he left has laid the groundwork for future research,” says Tupper. Peña’s voracity as a researcher led him to discover almost two thousand species of insects not described for science, of which approximately 400 bear his name, surpassing, according to the author, Darwin himself, who has about 300 between flora and fauna. Chile, a country globally recognized and visited for its impressive nature, owes its National Parks and protected areas, in part, to the work of conservationist Jürgen Rottmann (1941), whose simple life is collected in this work, as well as his work in documentary filmmaking, which earned him the nickname ‘David Attenborough of Chile’.

The conch shells of Neruda  

Among the seven naturalists, there are three women, whose stories highlight their arduous struggle in a field historically dominated by men, with one of the pioneers being María Codoceo (1909-1998), who always received little recognition.

The herpetologist made fundamental discoveries about the color change of lizards, worked without pay at the Chilean Museum of Natural History, unlike her male counterparts, and it was she who, with her classification, turned the collection of shells of the Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda into a treasure. “You look for the name of Maria and it is not related to Neruda’s shell collection and it cannot be understood, the classification took years,” says Tupper. Next to Codoceo is the story of botanist Adriana Hoffmann (1940-2022), responsible for the description of more than 100 species of cacti and who prepared the first flora guide with more than 70 types of orchids. In addition, she revealed the secret of the famous “flowering desert” in Atacama, in the north of the southern country. Also that of Giuliana Furci (1978), one of the most important voices in the funga and creator of the first foundation dedicated to fungi on the planet, who, in addition to discovering new species, managed to make Chile the first country in the world to include them in its environmental protection laws.

A human and scientific legacy

“The great discovery, seeing all these lives, is the solitary work and what the scientific work implies in super difficult conditions, that level of passion and love for what they do to live a tough life (precariousness) economically important and put their own money to reach conclusions that contribute to all of us,” explains Tupper. Like that of biologist Juan Carlos Castilla (1940), the foremost scholar of mollusks such as the ‘loco’ and the first Latin American to obtain the Eminent Ecological Award in 2024 – the highest global recognition in ecology – scientific contribution is closely related to the human being. The “integrating vision”, the writer rescues, led to the creation of the Areas of Management and Exploitation of Benthic Resources (AMERB), a system that integrates fishermen in the protection of resources to ensure their long-term sustainability. For Tupper lives like that of Guillermo Mann (1919-1967), discoverer of the ‘Chilean vampire’ and whose research on mammals contributed to identifying them as reservoirs of Chagas disease – providing understanding to the epidemiology of the disease in the South American Andean region – go beyond the “need to protect”. “We are at a pivotal moment for humanity in relation to environmental issues,” reflects Tupper, who hopes his book “will hopefully have some impact.”