 An avid naturalist, Iltis conducted numerous expeditions to Mexico and Central and South America to search for new discoveries.High in the Altiplano of southern Peru in 1962, he spotted a tiny flower that had not yet been classified by taxonomists.A full fifty years later, he and Harvey Ballard finally named it "Viola lilliputana", and it was selected as one of the top ten new species of the year by the International Institute for Species Exploration.