Florentino Ameghino

Florentino Ameghino was born on September 19, 1853, in Moneglia, Italy, arriving in Luján, Argentina, as an infant. Working as a rural primary schoolteacher and stationery shopkeeper, he spent every spare hour excavating fossil beds along the banks of the Luján River.

Funded entirely by his humble stationery store, Ameghino assembled the largest paleontological collection in South America, discovering prehistoric megatheriums, toxodons, and glyptodonts. His 1880 book La antigüedad del hombre en el Plata and his monumental 1889 monograph Contribución al conocimiento de los mamíferos fósiles de la República Argentina earned him world acclaim. Appointed Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Buenos Aires, he was mourned as Argentina's Darwin.