Marcos Jiménez de la Espada

Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (1831–1898) was a Spanish

zoologist, herpetologist, explorer and writer, born in Cartagena, Spain, although he spent most of his life in Madrid, where he died. He is known for participating in the Pacific Scientific Commission, with whom he traveled America from 1862 to 1865. He also published several works on geography

and history of the American continent.

Biography

The son of a politician, Jiménez de la Espada had to move several times during his

Sevilla

.

In 1850, he started a career in

amphibians

would be a recurring theme in his scientific work afterwards.

Two years after earning his degree, he got his first job as an assistant in the

Mariano de la Paz Graells

, in 1867.

Scientific work

Zoology

During all his American adventure, Jiménez de la Espada collected many kinds of animals that he not only studied, but also sent alive to

zoos

, which would garner Jiménez the First Class Medal of Mammal Division by the Société impériale zoologique d'acclimatation of France, on 23 March 1866.

He spent six years dedicated exclusively to the study and re-ordering of materials collected during the expedition, which he would include in his future works. In 1870, he published the article Some new and curious facts about the Amazonian fauna in a bulletin of the Universidad de Madrid. In this work, he described, among other things, the appearance and behavior of the Thyroptera albiventer bat. In 1871, he published the report Unknown Species of Neo-tropical Fauna in the Lisbon Science Academy Journal, and that same year he founded, along with other colleagues, the Spanish Society of Natural History, where he would publish most of his further works.

He was already a well-known author in Europe when he published his greatest work in the field of

Rhinoderma darwinii

, for which he debated the erroneous idea that its gestation process occurred in its mouth, as opposed to laying eggs which it later incubated in its mouth, as he proved. This complex study is considered, nowadays, a classic in zoological literature.

Geography, history, and anthropology

Despite being at the climax of his zoologist prestige, Jiménez de la Espada put his scientific work at hold and devoted himself to the study of

Perú from Pedro Cieza de León and Bartolomé de las Casas. From 1881 to 1897 he published four volumes of his work Geographic Relations of the Indies, which garnered him the Loubat prize from the History Academy. In 1882 he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.^[1]

He participated in congresses in

Inca

culture won him the Gold Medal from the Government of Perú. He was also made a member of various international societies. In 1895, he was named president of the Spanish Society of Natural History, which he founded.

Curiously, he did not present his doctoral thesis until April 1898, three months before he was named cathedratic of

Alessandro Malaspina in the 18th century. Francisco Giner de los Ríos

and other friends presented him as a symbol of Spanish scientific regenerationism during a posthumous ceremony in his honor.

References

This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of 6 December 2005

^ American Antiquarian Society Members Directory

External links

Works by or about Marcos Jiménez de la Espada at Internet Archive

[1] American Antiquarian Society Members Directory

[1]

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	Spain France BnF data Catalonia Germany Israel Belgium United States Netherlands Portugal Vatican
Academics	CiNii
People	Deutsche Biographie
Other	IdRef