Footsteps in the Jungle: Adventures in the Scientific Exploration of the American Tropics

In Footsteps in the Jungle, Jonathan Maslow recounts the exploits of thirteen of these scientists whom he calls "the luckiest men and women of all time" - the explorers who first mapped the tropical regions of the Americas and discovered the biological orgy that is nature in the tropics. They were the first to color the chorus of tropical birds; the first to know the swiftness of the jaguar; the first to learn the loves of the orchid family and to collect the daunting variety of moths and butterflies and beetles; the first to record the haunting settings of the equatorial sun; the first to run the rivers Amazon, to climb the Andes, and to dive the coral reefs of the Caribbean. Footsteps in the Jungle not only traces geographic adventures but is also a scientific and intellectual journey, from the myths of mermaids and superstitions about cannibals to Alexander von Humboldt's insights into biodiversity, Darwin's theory of natural selection, and our contemporary understanding of tropical ecology. Following in the footsteps of the great tropical explorer, it introduces a body of scientific literature with extraordinary literary value, and returns the reader back home with a new appreciation of present-day struggles to preserve tropical jungles and reefs from widespread destruction.