Leonardo Fea

Leonardo Fea
Born(1852-07-24)24 July 1852
Turin, Piedmont, Kingdom of Sardinia
Died27 April 1903(1903-04-27) (aged 50)
Turin, Kingdom of Italy
NationalityItalian
Known forCollections of birds and insects
Parent(s)Paolo Fea and Anna Roda
Scientific career
FieldsMalacology, geology

Leonardo Fea (Turin 24 July 1852 – Turin 27 April 1903)[1] was an Italian explorer, zoologist, painter, and naturalist.

Biography

Fea was born in Turin, a son of Paolo Fea, who was professor of painting at Accademia Albertina, and Anna Roda. In 1872 he became an assistant at the Museum of Natural History in Genoa. He made several foreign trips to collect specimens, including visits to Burma (1885–89) and the Cape Verde Islands (1898), the islands in the Gulf of Guinea (São Tomé, Príncipe, Fernando Po, Annobón, 1900–02) and Cameroon and French Congo (1902).[1] He spent four years in Burma, accumulating large collections of insects and birds. He then planned an expedition to Malaysia, but his poor health made it necessary to choose somewhere with a drier climate, hence his visit to the Cape Verdes. He was disappointed by the amount of wildlife he found there, but was still able to collect forty-seven species of birds, eleven of which were new for the islands. His collections are in the Genoa museum.

While on the Cape Verde Islands Fea collected a specimen of an unknown petrel. This was named Fea's petrel in 1900 by his friend Tommaso Salvadori.

Taxa named in his honour

Several species have been named to commemorate his work as naturalist and zoologist: [2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b Alippi Cappelletti, Maurizia (1995). "FEA, Leonardo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 45: Farinacci–Fedrigo (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  2. ^ Vaughan, Rob (2011). "A Zoological Who Was Who" (PDF). The Bartlett Society. Retrieved 8 November 2013.[permanent dead link‍]
  3. ^ Bo Beolens; Michael Watkins; Michael Grayson (2014). The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 417–18. ISBN 978-1-4729-0574-1.
  4. ^ Boulenger GA (1887). "Description of a new frog of the genus Megalophrys ". Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova. 4: 512–513.
  5. ^ a b c d e Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Fea", p. 88).

Further reading

  • Conci C (1975). "Repertorio delle biografie e bibliografie degli scrittori e cultori italiani di entomologia ". Mem. Soc. Ent. Ital 48 (4): 817–1069. (in Italian).
  • Conci C, Poggi R (1996). "Iconography of Italian Entomologists, with essential biographical data". Mem. Soc. Ent. Ital 75: 159–382.
  • Gestro A (1904). ["Fea, L."] Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Third Series 1 (= 41): 95-152. (Portrait). (in Italian).
  • Nalesini O (2009). L'Asia Sud-orientale nella cultura italiana. Bibliografia analitica ragionata, 1475-2005. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente. pp. 19–20, 65–66. ISBN 978-88-6323-284-4. (in Italian).