The Dutch West India Company occupied northeastern Brazil from 1624 to 1654. In 1638, the physician Willem Piso and astronomer Georg Markgraf arrived as part of Johann Maurits’s research staff, tasked with promoting scientific studies in Brazil. This section of the Historia naturalis Brasiliae was written by Piso's colleague, the astronomer Georg Markgraf. Markgraf wrote the last eight sections of the Historia naturalis Brasiliae, of which this is the sixth. These sections as a whole were devoted to the medical uses of plants; to fish, birds, insects, quadrupeds and reptiles; and to full descriptions of geographic regions and their inhabitants. Markgraf also describes the appearance, habits, and environment of each animal depicted.
