Maria Elizabeth Emilie Snethlage (1868-1929)

Namesake of: Snethlage’s marmoset (Mico emiliae)

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- German-born naturalist and ornithologist

- Emigrated to Brazil in 1905 when offered a position as Director of the Bélem Natural History Museum.

- Conducted many collecting expeditions in the Amazon, described multiple bird species new to Western science, and eventually became a Brazilian citizen.

"She is credited with laying some of the core foundations of Brazilian ornithology, corresponding with a network of other naturalists, and her work resulting in the description of 60 new species and subspecies – in many instances giving the binomial eponym credit to her assistants in the field. Perhaps among her most notable achievements was the publishing that same year of the “Catalogue of Amazonian Birds” which covered over 1100 species and would be the primary text for Brazilian Birds for much of the following century.

She was also by all accounts a woman with considerable fortitude – one account mentions her carrying an anteater at a brisk pace for two hours, while in 1914 she got an infected would after her finger was bitten by a piranha and ended up cutting some of it off herself with a machete."