German naturalist who travelled in Brazil collecting birds and plants. Freyreiss, from Frankfurt, arrived in Brazil in 1813, employed as 'aide-naturaliste' by the Russian consul in Rio de Janeiro, Baron G.H. von Langsdorff. His first collections were made alongside Langsdorff and the German geologist W.L. Eschwege on a two-year trip through the interior of Minas Gerais. Following this, Freyreiss became attached to the explorations of Prince Maximilian Wied-Neuwied and the German botanist Friedrich Sellow in Bahia. Freyreiss collected plants and bird skins on this journey, amassing thousands of specimens for the collection of the Zoological Museum in Berlin. He was also employed by the Swedish consul in Rio de Janeiro, Lorentz Westin, to collect plant material for herbaria at Stockholm and Uppsala.

Finally settling in 1818, Freyreiss was appointed professor of zoology at the University of Rio de Janeiro and was given permission to establish a German colony in Bahia. He died at this colony, Leopoldina (now Helvécia), in 1825. In 1824 he had published an account of life in this region, Beitrage zur näheren Kenntniss des Kaiserthums Brasilien, later translated into Swedish by C.A.M. Lindman. An account of his travels, Reisen in Brasilien, was published nearly 150 years afterwards in 1968 and translated into Portuguese in 1982. Both works are largely of anthropological interest.

Sources:
B.J. Barickman, 1995, "'Tame Indians', 'Wild Heathens' and Settlers in Southern Bahia in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries", The Americas, 51(3): 332
A. Lasègue, 1845, Musée Botanique: 476-477
C.A.M. Lindman, 1900, Bidrag till kännedomen om Brasiliens urbefolkning: 260-261

I. Urban, 1906, Flora Brasiliensis, 1(1): 21-22.