Emilie Snethlage

Who was Emilie Snethlage?

Maria Emilie Snethlage was a German-born Brazilian naturalist and ornithologist who worked on the bird fauna of the Amazon. Snethlage collected in Brazil from 1905 until her death.

Maria Emilie Snethlage was born in Kraatz in the Province of Brandenburg, Prussia, and educated privately at her father's house. In 1900, after years working as a governess, she took up natural history. Snethlage was a doctor in Natural Philosophy and had been a zoological assistant at the Berlin Natural History Museum before being hired by Emílio Goeldi for the natural history museum in Belém on the recommendation of Dr. A. Reichenow. Her work in the Brazilian Amazon took her to Acre and other remote places.

She became the director of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, after the death of botanist Jacques Hüber, between 1914 and 1922. She wrote the Catálogo das Aves Amazônicas. Snethlage was granted honorary membership in the British Ornithologists' Union in 1915. In 1921 she went to the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, as "naturalista viajante." She continued her studies of the Brazilian avifauna with field trips to Minas Gerais, Maranhão, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo state, and the Brazilian Amazon.