Fritz Müller facts for kids
Fritz Müller (born March 31, 1821 – died May 21, 1897) was a German biologist and doctor. He moved to southern Brazil and spent his life studying the amazing plants and animals there. He was a big supporter of Darwinism, which is Charles Darwin's idea about how living things change over time. A special type of mimicry is named after him.
Fritz Müller's Life Story
Fritz Müller had a good science education at universities in Berlin and Greifswald. He earned a doctoral degree. Then, he decided to study medicine. During his medical studies, he started to question religion and became an atheist in 1846. Even though he finished his medical course, he didn't graduate. This was because he refused to say the graduation oath, which included "so help me God and his sacred Gospel."
Müller was upset when the Prussian Revolution failed in 1848. He thought this might cause problems for his future. So, in 1852, he moved to South Brazil with his brother August and their wives. They joined a new settlement called Blumenau in the state of Santa Catarina. This colony was near the coast, by the Itajaí River.
In Brazil, Müller lived with his wife Caroline. He worked as a farmer, doctor, teacher, and biologist. Sometimes the government hired him, and sometimes he worked for himself. He always collected information about the plants and animals in the Atlantic forest. The weather there is warm, like in the sub-tropical areas, and the plants are typical of the Brazilian coast. It's not a rain forest.
In 1876, he got a great job as a Travelling Naturalist for the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. This job was perfect for him! It allowed him to explore the entire Itajaí River area and study anything he found interesting. He wrote many reports about his work, which were published in the museum's Archivos.
Sadly, this good time ended when the government changed in Brazil in 1889. The new Brazilian Republic had a lot of corruption and favoritism. Eventually, there was a civil war from 1893 to 1895. New rules said that travelling naturalists had to live in Rio de Janeiro. Müller refused and was fired.
In his later years, Müller received many letters of support and offers of money from people like Darwin. His cousin Alfred Möller visited him and later wrote a book about his life. Fritz Müller didn't get much money or fame from the Brazilian government during his life. But today, he is highly respected. He was one of the greatest naturalists who worked in South America in the 1800s. Other famous naturalists included Humboldt, Darwin, Wallace, Bates, and Spruce. Fritz Müller was the only one of them who stayed in Brazil for the rest of his life. A statue of him was put up in Blumenau in 1929.
Fritz's brother, Hermann Müller, was also a biologist who studied evolution. He was very interested in how insects and flowers changed together, which is called coevolution. He also wrote letters to Darwin, who helped get his 1873 book translated into English.
Fritz Müller's Discoveries in Biology
During his life, Fritz Müller published over 70 papers. Most were in German, but some were in English and Portuguese. He wrote about many different topics in natural history, including insects, ocean animals, and plants.
Müllerian Mimicry: Animals That Look Alike
One of Müller's most important discoveries was about something called Müllerian mimicry. This happens when two or more animal species that taste bad or are dangerous look very similar to each other. Predators, like birds, learn to avoid these animals. The animals often have a bad chemical inside them, or they might have a sting or other defense.
It's helpful for these animals to show off their danger with bright colors. This is called aposematic or warning colouration. For example, Müller studied butterflies that tasted bad, and their predators were usually birds or reptiles.
Animals with warning colors are often red, yellow, black, or white. Animals that taste good usually have colors that help them hide. Dangerous animals might fly slowly and be easy to see. They often have tough skin and can squirt bad fluids if a predator tries to eat them. They usually survive a "trial bite."
In Müllerian mimicry, it's good for bad-tasting species to look alike. This is especially true if the predator remembers colors well, like birds do. So, if a bird tries to eat one bad-tasting butterfly and learns its lesson, it will then avoid other butterfly species that look similar. Brazilian butterflies show some of the best examples of mimicry. Müller, Bates, and Wallace all spent a lot of time studying this. All three believed that mimicry systems could only happen through natural selection, and they all wrote about it.
Stingless Bees: Nature's Fire-Spitters
One of Müller's favorite topics was the way stingless honey-bees, like Melipoma and Trigona, live. These bees are protected by a venom they squirt when bothered. Locals called them Cagafogo, which means "fire-shitter."
Dimorphism in Midges: Two Types of Females
Another discovery Müller made was about midges from the Blepharicereidae family. He found that there were two different types of female midges. One type had mouth-parts for sucking blood, while the other type drank nectar, just like the male midges. To prove this to people who doubted him, he carefully checked the sex of the flies and even raised them from their pupae (a stage in their life cycle).
Termites: Different from Ants
By studying living termites, Müller was able to correct many mistakes found in science books. For example, their social system is very different from ants. Termite groups have both male and female members in their different jobs (castes). But in ants, the different jobs are only done by females, and the males are haploid (meaning they have only one set of chromosomes). Termites are placed in a different group of insects called the Isoptera.
Botanical Work: Studying Plants with Darwin
Much of Müller's work on plants was inspired by the books Darwin published after his famous Origin of Species. Müller helped in all these areas. After Darwin's Fertilisation of Orchids (1862), Müller spent years studying orchids. He sent his observations to his brother Hermann and to Darwin. Darwin used some of this information in his second edition of the book in 1877. Hermann later became famous for his work on how flowers are pollinated. For Darwin's book on Climbing plants (1867), Müller sent Darwin a letter listing 40 types of climbing plants, grouped by how they climbed. Over the next few months, he sent more observations, which Darwin had translated and published as Müller's first paper in English.
Müller and Darwin: A Strong Connection
Fritz Müller became a very strong supporter of Darwin. In 1864, he wrote a book called Für Darwin (which means "For Darwin"). In this book, he argued that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was correct. He showed how Brazilian crustaceans (like crabs and shrimp) and their young could change and adapt at any stage of their growth. This book was translated into English in 1869 as Facts and Arguments for Darwin. If Müller had a weakness, it was that his writing was harder to read than Darwin's or Wallace's. Both the German and English versions of his book are quite difficult, which has meant that this important book isn't as well known as it should be.
Müller and Darwin wrote many letters to each other. Müller also wrote letters to other important scientists like Alexander Agassiz, Ernst Krause, and Ernst Haeckel.
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In Spanish: Fritz Müller para niños
