The transcontinental birth of a species: scientific discussions and natural history museums in the second half of the nineteenth century Sanhueza Cerda, Carlos Museos de historia natural Objetos científicos Naturalistas León marino sudamericano Natural history museums Scientific objects Naturalists South American sea lion This article - translated from the original Spanish by Douglas Kristopher Smith - was made possible by FONDECYT grant number 1130593, as well as research conducted as a visiting scholar at the Humboldt Foundation, Germany. This article is a case study of the scientific discussions on the birth of a zoological species that eventually came to be known as Arctocephalus philippii (Peters, 1866). It also examines the movement of the remains of a sea lion specimen from Chile to Germany and the discussions that arose in regard to its taxonomic definition. The paper argues that the material properties of this mobilized specimen, the circumstances of how it was hunted, transported and stored at the different museums, as well as the material aspects that later allowed it to be compared and analyzed, influenced the international debates on its classification between naturalists in England, Germany, Chile and Argentina. The first part reconstructs the context of sea lion’s capture, transportation and transformation, while the second examines the discussion around this particular specimen — a controversy hinged partly upon the issue of the conditions in which it was graphically reproduced and preserved at the museum. 2022-06-08T11:18:12Z 2022-06-08T11:18:12Z 2017 journal article Sanhueza Cerda, C. «The Transcontinental Birth of a Species: Scientific Discussions and Natural History Museums in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century». Dynamis: Acta Hispanica Ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam, Vol. 37, Núm. 1, 1, p. 111-3, [https://raco.cat/index.php/Dynamis/article/view/318875] 2340-7948 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/75341 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ open access Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Universidad de Granada