Félix Manuel de Azara

Félix Manuel de Azara was a Spanish military officer and naturalist born on 18th May 1746 in Aragon, Spain. His first post in the military was as an engineer, thus distinguishing himself on various expeditions. Later, after thirteen years of service, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1777, i.e, during the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, Azara was appointed as the member of delegation to Rio de la Plata region. Hence, he left quickly for the New World. Even though he arrived in the region, the Portuguese delegation never arrived. Thus, Azara was stuck in the region from 1781 to 1801. He was finding ways to pass the time, and fortunately, he was interested in birds and mammals. Even though he was neither a professional naturalist nor had any resources in the form of books or colleagues, he decided to create a map for the region. He started wandering and took note of the nature of the region. Unlike many of the naturalists, he preferred to study his birds and animals while they were alive rather than dead and preserved ones, so he opened the doors of his house for monkeys and owls and all manner of armadillos, many of which he kept alive for significant lengths of time, considering that most of the wild animals do not live long under captivity. Over time, he successfully described 448 birds. This number can be reduced to 381 if we take duplications of age, sex and plumage into account. He had also identified 78 quadrupeds, out of which 43 were new. A number of animals including Aotus azarae (Azara’s night monkey), Dasyprocta azarae (Azara’s agouti), Akodon azarae (Azara’s grass mouse) were named after him. Dorsum Azara on the Moon is also named after him. He sent his zoological notes and observations to his brother José Nicolás de Azara who was the Spanish Ambassador at Paris back then. His brother helped him to publish these observations under the title Essai sur l'histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes du Paraguay. Later, his observations were cited in a lot of essays. He then later after returning, came across Histoire naturelle by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and criticised that Buffon had never even seen many of the animals in Paraguay that he was commenting upon. The criticism wasn’t taken well. So he was set about writing his own natural history of Paraguay and thus published his observations on various topics ranging from the region’s geography to characteristics of many indigenous groups in Paraguay under the title Voyage dans l'Amerique meridionale depuis 1781 jusqu'en 1801. But there were many critics at first, as many professional naturalists didn’t like the fact that most of his works were aimed at correcting what he considered to be errors in Histoire naturelle by their fellow naturalists Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. So, the editor removed most of Azara's critical comments and also pruned much of the text.