“Un mes en Londres”: Angel Cabrera Latorre at the British Museum (Natural History) and the launch of an international career

Abstract

Angel Cabrera Latorre (1879–1960) was the authority on mammalian studies in Spain during the early twentieth century. Even though his first professional progress at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid were driven by the former naturalists of Comisión Científica al Pacífico (1862–1866), nevertheless Oldfield Thomas (1858–1929) acted as his mentor. Cabrera's mastery was learned at the British Museum (Natural History) in London where he spent a month during 1910. After returning to Madrid, Cabrera introduced in a short time several modifications in the vertebrate collections, museum's display and nomenclature, and in 1914 contributed the volume about mammals to Fauna Ibérica. Cabrera's Mamiferos remains a landmark in Iberian faunal studies.