KEN FISHER examines THE TEIDE ADVENTURERS, those larger-than-life figures for whom the magnetic draw of climbing to the top of Teide proved irresistible. First up is ERNST HAECKEL (1834-1919)
ERNST HAECKEL was a man of many parts – physician, botanist, zoologist, and artist who discovered and named thousands of new species. He also introduced words to the language which have come into prominence today such as ecology and stem cells.
He was born in Potsdam (then part of Prussia) and first studied medicine before moving into zoology and had become well known in Europe by the time that Charles Darwin introduced his book On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection in 1859. He fully supported this theory and promoted it throughout Europe, adding a few ideas of his own with which Darwin was not in agreement.