The legendary naturalist Charles Robert Darwin, who was born in 1809 and died in 1882, is one of history’s best-known scientists. His groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species, which presented a theory of evolution by natural selection, is still the foundation of modern evolutionary study more than 160 years after its publication, and his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle, including his trip to the Galapagos Islands, is still a widely recounted tale.
His story is more complex than you might know, though. What hobby made Darwin the object of ridicule when he was a kid? Did he actually have his lightbulb moment while visiting the Galapagos? Which animal did he spend eight whole years studying while developing his most famous theory? From his experiments in taxidermy to his habit of eating the animals he studied, here are 10 facts you may not know about the famed researcher.
Charles Darwin Took After His Scientist Grandfather
Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin was a noted physician and botanist, and Erasmus loved the latter science so much that he was known for writing gushing poetry on the subject, in addition to translating many widely used textbooks. His book Zoonomia touched on ideas of evolution, and like his grandson, he came under fire from the English establishment, which preferred biblical chronology.
His tone, however, differed significantly from his grandson’s. One of his more popular works, a poem called “The Loves of Plants,” used titillating language to pique readers’ interest in botany. This is one of the tamer excerpts:
With secret sighs the Virgin Lily droops,
And jealous Cowslips hang their tawny cups.
How the young Rose in beauty’s damask pride
Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride;
With honey'd lips enamour'd Woodbines meet,
Clasp with fond arms, and mix their kisses sweet.
Charles Darwin’s High School Nickname Was “Gas”
A wealth of scientific knowledge was available at the time young Charles was in school in the early 19th century, but public schools in England had been slow to adapt it into their curriculum. Science was considered not just uncool, but uncouth at the time. The young Charles Darwin dabbled in chemistry anyway, which didn’t exactly put him in the good graces of his classmates at Shrewsbury School (in Shropshire, England), and they nicknamed him “Gas.” Even his headmaster admonished him for his hobby.
Darwin’s Father Sent Him to Med School (And He Hated It)
Darwin’s father, a physician who considered his son to be kind of a layabout, sent him to Edinburgh University to study medicine at age 16, in 1825. Darwin’s education there was formative; he learned all about the scientific disciplines he loved, like geology, botany, taxonomy, and even taxidermy. At the time, scientists banned from Anglican universities in England came to the Scottish school to discuss then-deviant ideas — such as the early rumblings of evolutionary theory. Darwin did not, however, learn much about medicine, since anatomy bored him and surgery disgusted him.
The knowledge he gained from Edinburgh would serve him well when his dad transferred him to Christ’s College, which had a much more conservative curriculum. It was one of his professors at that institution — Reverend John Stevens Henslow — who encouraged him to sail to South America on the HMS Beagle on an expedition that would eventually take him to the Galapagos Islands.
The Galapagos Islands Didn’t Immediately Lead Him to Natural Selection
At the time he set sail in 1831, Darwin was actually a creationist, holding the then-mainstream English belief that animals and their unique attributes were divinely designed rather than created through a natural process. He wouldn’t change his mind until after he came back from his trip — so despite the popular image of Darwin having a “lightbulb” moment while studying the wildlife on the Galapagos Islands, he didn’t think in detail about the archipelago’s unique ecosystem while he was there. He didn’t note the exact location on most of his bird specimens, and he didn’t collect tortoise specimens at all — only tortoise pets — even though the locals already believed that each island had a distinct race of them.
Darwin, also a geologist, did make one thrilling discovery during his time in the region, however. He noticed some fossilized trees high up in the Andes that he realized must have been underwater for quite some time, and wondered how they got there. The crew had already observed the eruption of a Chilean volcano, and later, they witnessed a major earthquake and a tidal wave up the coast. After confirming some measurements, he realized they were all connected, and proposed a theory of continental uplift: “We may confidently come to the conclusion that the forces which slowly and by little starts uplift continents,” wrote Darwin, “and those which at successive periods pour forth volcanic matter from open orifices, are identical.” His work helped pave the way for the theory of plate tectonics.
Darwin Rose to Prominence as a Geologist
Darwin is best known today for his work as a naturalist, but knowing his views would be controversial, he didn’t share his theory of evolution by natural selection until later in life. Even on the Beagle, geology was his drive, and he wrote to his sisters back home that he “literally could not sleep” thinking about the subject. While he didn’t keep the most thorough records of animal life in the Galapagos Islands, he painstakingly studied lava flows. At the end of the five-year voyage, he had amassed 1,383 pages of notes on geology, compared to 368 on animals and plants.
So upon his return to England, he built his reputation as a well-regarded gentleman geologist. He presented his findings on the Chilean coastline to the Royal Geological Society in 1837 and published the first standalone version of his diary from the voyage, “Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle,” in 1839. He published a variety of small papers on geological formations from not just his voyage, but Scotland and Wales. In the 1840s, he published books on coral reef formations, volcanoes, and the geography of South America, but eventually retired as an active geology researcher and threw himself into studying animal life.
His Preservation Techniques Had Mixed Results
Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history, but even he couldn’t knock it out of the park every time. He acquired a lot of specimens — which became a lot of clutter — during the voyage of the HMS Beagle. Soon, building off his taxidermy knowledge from university, Darwin started experimenting with new preservation techniques using wax, alcoholic spirits, and thin sheets of lead, and he’d mail his creations home to his former professor Reverend Henslow for feedback.
The results were mixed. In one letter to Darwin, Henslow describes moldy mice and crushed bird feathers, although he compliments some of the insects and lichens. Then there was the mystery fungus: “For goodness sake what is No. 223?” wrote Henslow. “It looks like the remains of an electric explosion, a mere mass of soot — something very curious I daresay.”
One specimen in his collection, rediscovered in 2009, was an egg with a large crack in it — a result not of age, but of Darwin putting it in too small of a box.
Darwin Had a Notoriously Adventurous Palate — And Ate Many of His Subjects
Even before his time as a naturalist, Darwin made a point of eating animals that weren’t part of the standard culinary repertoire. While at Christ’s College, he belonged to a group called the Glutton Club, which ate hawk, bittern (a bird in the heron family), and finally a brown owl, before disbanding.
His voyage around the world significantly expanded his options, and Darwin took full advantage, eating puma, iguanas, armadillos, giant tortoises, and his favorite, an unspecified 20-pound rodent. He spent months trying to track down a large, flightless bird called a lesser rhea (sometimes called a Darwin’s rhea), before realizing one day that he was actively dining on one. He called a halt to the meal and sent the leftovers back to England.
He Spent 8 Years Studying Barnacles
Aboard the Beagle, Darwin encountered one of his more fascinating subjects: a species of barnacle without a shell, which he nicknamed Mr. Arthrobalanus. During his time as a gentleman geologist, his mind kept coming back to that barnacle. He began abandoning creationism in the late 1830s, and revisiting his research, engaging with the present scientific discourse, and eventually meeting with dog and pigeon breeders to gather more research.
He sketched out his vague ideas in 1842, and later instructed his wife to publish them if he died suddenly. For the next several years, he would only share his ideas with close confidantes for fear of reprisal. One of them suggested he actually study a species, any species, in depth before he started speculating about their origin — so Darwin finally returned to his barnacles to gain some clarity.
Unfortunately, it turned into a way bigger project than he’d anticipated, since most previous research on barnacles was sloppy, badly cataloged, and riddled with mistakes. So he set about reclassifying everything, requesting barnacle specimens from around the world for study. It sounds tedious, but apparently Darwin loved the work and welcomed a chance to get hands-on again.
His peers made fun of him mercilessly, but it turned out he had a lot to learn from the tiny marine creatures, and cataloged every little nuance and link between them. Eventually it paid off, earning him a Royal Society medal in 1853. Through this work, he gained hands-on experience he needed to strengthen the theory that would make him famous.
Writing and Publishing “The Origin of Species” Was Extremely Stressful
Even as Darwin started to experience his scientific awakening, he never lost sight of the consequences of stating his views publicly. To mainstream Anglican society, anything but creationism was heresy. Evolution as a general idea was already pretty well established, and some atheists who espoused it were being jailed for blasphemy. Darwin had a long way to fall if he was caught before he was fully ready.
Meanwhile, starting in the late 1830s, Darwin began suffering from a host of health problems, including severe nausea. Some experts theorize that this was the result of an illness he contracted on his travels, while others contend it was anxiety-related. Regardless, he was stressed: In 1842, he moved his family outside of London, and even lowered the road outside their house so he would be harder to see. He started turning to spa treatments and quack cures for his illness, even resorting to tying plate batteries to his stomach.
When it came time to actually publish the manuscript, Darwin’s anxiety was especially high. His nausea worsened, and he was taken to a spa in Yorkshire when his book was published in 1859. Two weeks beforehand, he’d sent copies to 11 prominent scientists asking for support, but included intensely self-deprecating passages such as “how savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to crucify me alive!” He later described this time as like “living in Hell.”
His Son Became an Influential Astronomer
Charles Darwin’s son George Darwin spent his childhood helping his father in his lab. Famously, upon visiting a friend’s house without a study, he asked, “But where does your father do his barnacles?”
This junior researcher went on to become the next in the family line of scientists as a celebrated astronomer and pioneering geophysicist, best known for his theory that the moon was once part of the Earth before it was pulled away by solar tides to create a satellite. This is generally considered unlikely now, but, as the first theory of sun-Earth-moon evolution based on mathematics applied to geophysics, it was groundbreaking at the time. In a way, it was a very early step toward what most astronomers believe today: that because of some sort of impact, parts of Earth and another unknown celestial body combined to become the moon.