Still an under-graduate in 1964, he made his first expedition to the tropics, to which he travelled many times in the subsequent decades to study the mammalian fauna.
During this period he spent the summer months working as a naturalist for the U.S. Forest Service in the Sandia Mountains.
His master thesis dealt with the relationships of five Peromyscus species in the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico, his dissertation with the small tropical insectivorous bat Myotis nigricans.
Wilson published more than 270 scientific publications, including the book Mammals of New Mexico and three monographs on bats.
[2] Since 2009, he is co-editor (with Russell Mittermeier) of the book series Handbook of the Mammals of the World, from the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions.