Félix de Azara

Félix Manuel de Azara (18 May 1746 – 20 October 1821) was a Spanish military officer, naturalist, and engineer.

Félix de Azara was born on May 18, 1746, in Barbunales, Aragon. He joined the army and attended a Spanish military academy. He was commissioned as an engineer, distinguishing himself on various expeditions. He spent the next thirteen years of his life in the military and rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the Spanish Army.

In 1777, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso. As dictated by the treaty, each nation would send a delegation to the Río de la Plata region to negotiate the border dispute between the Portuguese and Spanish colonies. Azara was selected as a member of this delegation, departing quickly for the New World. The Portuguese delegation, however, never arrived, and Azara ended up remaining in the region from 1781 to 1801. To pass the time, he decided to create an accurate map of the region. On these expeditions, Azara began observing the nature of the region. Over the course of his time there, he "described 448 birds...This number is reduced to 381 when duplications of sex, age, and plumage are taken into account (eight remain unidentified), and 178 of them are the types upon which the scientific names are based.” He also identified 78 quadrupeds, 43 of which were new. A number of animals were named after him, including Azara's night monkey Aotus azarae, Azara's agouti Dasyprocta azarae, Azara's grass mouse Akodon azarae and Azara's spinetail Synallaxis azarae. Dorsum Azara on the Moon is also named after him. Before leaving South America, he sent his brother José Nicolás de Azara (then Spanish Ambassador at Paris) his zoological notes and observations, which Moreau de Saint-Méry published at Paris in 1801 under the title of "Essai sur l'histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes du Paraguay". In 1802 there appeared at Madrid the essay Apuntamientos para la Historia natural de los cuadrúpedos del Paraguay y Río de la Plata.

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