nature
Naturalists who rode alligators and climbed trees barefoot into their seventies.
The Man Who Painted the Dead
How do you paint a wild bird at exact life size without it moving?
The Man Who Signed a Treaty With a Wolf
In 1220, when a wolf was eating the citizens of Gubbio, a barefoot friar walked out alone to negotiate terms.
The Spider That Was Named After Her
At fifty-two, a divorced naturalist sold every painting she owned and sailed to a malarial jungle to paint a spider no one believed existed.
The Boy in the Garden
A country doctor famous for birds made two small cuts in his gardener's eight-year-old son — and then did it again, and again, for years.
The Shoemaker Who Became a Bear
A grizzly attack left him with a silver-dollar-sized hole in his skull — and that bear ended up on the California state flag.
The Squire Who Taught Darwin Everything
He rode a caiman like a horse, built the world's first nature reserve, and accidentally set in motion the theory of evolution.
The Boy Who Kept Scorpions in Matchboxes
The zoo that once refused to hire him now sends its directors to the training academy he built.