Edoardo Razzetti

University of Pavia | UNIPV · Kosmos - Museo di Storia Naturale

Water frogs of the genus Pelophylax have been widely traded by humans across all European countries for decades, and so far they have been shown to be invasive in most of them. The spread of alien Pelophylax threatens the persistence of native populations mainly via competition and hybridization. Particularly, the latter is worrying for the persist...

RIASSUNTO Lo Studio Naturalistico Platypus e Kosmos hanno realizzato una esposizione temporanea dedicata ai chirotte-ri, sia per celebrare le ricerche di Lazzaro Spallanzani sul "sesto senso" dei pipistrelli sia per fare conoscere al pubblico alcuni aspetti della biologia di questi animali tutelati dalla Direttiva 92/43/CEE "Habitat". "Ali nella no...

A fossil shark is the main specimen of the new paleontology hall in Kosmos The role of museums in education is a key topic and represents an opportunity for us to show how it is possible to adequately develop the didactic potential of specimens originally collected for research purposes. The fossil shark was found in 1878 near Castellavazzo (BL). R...

"Ali nella notte", bats between science and fiction Platypus and Kosmos created a temporary exhibition dedicated to chiroptera, not only to celebrate Lazzaro Spallanzani' s researches on the "sixth sense" of bats but also to increase the awareness of the importance of the conservation of these animals that are protected by Directive 92/43/EEC "Habi...

"The new atlas of Amphibians and Reptiles of Italy". The atlas project of S.H.I. started in 1993 and led to the publication of the Atlas of amphibians and reptiles of Italy in 2006. Since 2013, citizen science platforms have been adopted to increase data collection. The new database contains 240,000 geo-referenced data often associated with images...

SUMMARY: "The restoration of the Nile crocodile in the collections of Kosmos-Natural History Museum of Pavia". The zoological collections of Kosmos host a large specimen of Crocodylus niloticus dating back to the end of the eighteenth century and originating from Egypt. This specimen was restored in 2019 by the company Platypus s.r.l. for the renov...

Herpetofauna of Italy: an annotated list of common Italian names. We propose, following the criteria illustrated in the text, some Italian common names for the species occurring in the Italian territory and not reported in Razzetti et al. (2001). The discussion mainly deals with taxa at species level but names of a few subspecies are also proposed....

Natural history museums are irreplaceable tools to study and preserve the biological diversity around the globe and among the primary actors in the recognition of species and the logical repositories for their type specimens. In this paper we surveyed the consistency of the preserved specimens of amphibians and reptiles housed in the major Italian...

The diet in skinks is known mainly for extra-European species, especially from Australian ones, where these lizards are represented by a great number of species, while, in comparison, data for species from other continents are scarce. The three-toed skink, Chalcides chalcides, is found in a restricted part of northern Africa and in Italy, where it...

Aim Analyses of biogeographical patterns and macroecology of islands require large datasets reporting the occurrence of species. The Mediterranean region is a biodiversity hotspot, which hosts a large number of reptile species and has been the focus of many studies. Nevertheless, comprehensive inventories describing the features and biodiversity of...

This paper represents an update of the list of Italian amphibians and reptiles published 15 years ago by Razzetti et al. (2006) and of the checklist published in 1993 by the late Benedetto Lanza. At present, the Italian herpetofauna includes 100 species (41 amphibians and 60 reptiles) and an amphibian taxon of hybrid origin. Seven species and one s...

Il progetto atlante S.H.I. è nato nel 1993 e ha portato alla pubblicazione dell’Atlante degli Anfibi e dei rettili d’Italia nel 2006. A partire dal 2013 sono state adottati strumenti di citizen science per incrementare la raccolta dati distributivi. La nuova banca dati contiene ora 240.000 segnalazioni georeferenziate direttamente sul campo, spesso...

The restoration of the Nile crocodile in the collections of Kosmos-Natural History Museum of Pavia. The zoological collections of Kosmos host a large specimen of Crocodylus niloticus dating back to the end of the eighteenth century and originating from Egypt. This specimen was restored in 2019 by the company Platypus s.r.l. for the renovated exhibi...

Reorganisation of museum storage according to the RE-ORG method. Feasibility study for the Museum of Natural History of the University of Pavia The museum storage areas have always been a topic that has been little discussed. The reasons are different, among then the desire to keep hidden the problems of organization of these areas. In 2011, the RE...

RIASSUNTO Kosmos, il nuovo Museo di Storia Naturale, ha voluto adottare nel suo nuovo allestimento strategie adatte a promuovere l'accessibilità alle collezioni. Il percorso è stato dunque arricchito di installazioni e giochi inte-rattivi con l'intento di veicolare i contenuti scientifici in forma coinvolgente. Per visite guidate e laboratori Kosmo...

The Socotra Archipelago is a unique hotspot of biodiversity, particularly for terrestrial reptiles (28 endemic out of 31 native species) whose ecology is known only in general terms. We describe the ecological preference and the daily activity of 21 species of terrestrial reptiles, geckos, lizards, skinks, snakes and chameleon, from the largest isl...

To stabilize current nomenclature, Coluber helveticus Lacepède, 1789 and Coluber siculus Cuvier, 1829 are qualified as nomina protecta to ensure the usage of the established names Natrix helvetica (Lacepède, 1789) and Natrix helvetica sicula (Cuvier, 1829) for the barred grass snake. For the same reason, Coluber bipes Gmelin, 1789, Coluber tyrolens...

The last species list of the European herpetofauna was published by Speybroeck, Beukema and Crochet (2010). In the meantime, ongoing research led to numerous taxonomic changes, including the discovery of new species-level lineages as well as reclassifications at genus level, requiring significant changes to this list. As of 2019, a new Taxonomic Co...

Grass snakes are widely distributed across the Western Palearctic. Recent phylogeo-graphic studies provided evidence that three distinct parapatric species exist. Two of these occur in Italy, Natrix helvetica and N. natrix, and a contact zone between both taxa has been suggested for northeastern Italy. Moreover, previous investigations revealed for...

Recovery of a fluid preserved comparative anatomy collection in the Museum of Natural History of the University of Pavia The Natural History Museum of the University of Pavia houses historical collections of Zoology, Mineralogy and Comparative Anatomy, acquired since 1771, including the “Forma del Corpo” Collection, established in 1875 by Leopoldo...

ambito della riforma dell'Ateneo voluta dalla sovrana Maria Teresa d'Austria. Fondatore e direttore del Museo per quasi trent'anni fu lo scienziato Lazzaro Spallanzani. Grazie al suo impegno nel reperire i reperti e ai finanziamenti del governo austriaco, il Museo divenne nel giro di pochi anni uno dei più ricchi e apprezzati d'Europa (Pavesi, 1901...

Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity and alien herpetofauna already caused conservation problems in Italy and in the world. Pelophylax kurtmuelleri (Gayda, 1940) is a water frog native to Southern Balkans, that was introduced in NW Italy (Liguria) in 1941, from where it has spread to Piedmont, Lombardy and recently to Emilia Romagna....

Eye size is interesting in snakes because in most species body length differs between the sexes, while the eye's performance depends on its absolute size. So, does the smaller sex see less well? We hypothesized that eye sexual mensural dimorphism (SMD) would be smaller than Body SMD. We found among 26 snake populations that body length SMD was fema...

Two populations of Brachythemis impartita (Karsch, 1890) are here reported in peninsular Italy. The species was found for the first time in 2015 in Calabria in the area of the Angitola artificial lake (Maierato and Monterosso Calabro municipalities) not far from the Tyrrhenian coast. In 2016 the species was also observed in southern Apulia, along t...

The elephant of Napoleon: from historical reconstruction to public display. The elephant of Napoleon: from historical reconstruction to public display. The acquisition of a specimen of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) by the Museum of Natural History of the University of Pavia was traced from archive documents. The history of this animal starts in...

The article. 16 of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) allows Member States of the EU to derogate from the restrictions imposed for the protection of flora and fauna (art. 12, 13, 14 and 15) provided that there is no other viable option and that the exemption is not detrimental to the maintenance of a favourable conservation status of the local popu...

Abstract. The three-toed skink Chalcides chalcides is a species of skink that, due to its particular ecology, is rather difficult to study on the field. Consequently, the available information for this species are scarce and, in particular for Italy, concern mainly morphological and genetic aspects, investigated exclusively for south-central popula...

Few DNA barcoding studies of squamate reptiles have been conducted. Due to the significance of the Socotra Archipelago (a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site and a biodiversity hotspot) and the conservation interest of its reptile fauna (94% endemics), we performed the most comprehensive DNA barcoding study on an island group to date to test its app...

Species maps showing the localities and phylogenetic relationships of all Socotran reptiles. A total of 380 specimens of included in this study. White dots represent bibliographic and new distribution records, and green stars sampled specimens. Black dots on trees indicate posterior probability values ≥ 0.95, and values next to the nodes Maximum Li...

Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree for all reptiles of the Socotra Archipelago. Phylogenetic relationships based on COI gene. Bootstrap values >70% are shown next to the nodes. (DOCX)

Neighbour-Joining tree for all reptiles of the Socotra Archipelago. Bootstrap values ≥70% are shown next to the nodes. See Material and Methods for further details. (DOCX)

Details of the samples. Taxonomic information and number of COI sequences amplified (N) of endemic and introduced reptile (*) species present (•) in the Socotra Archipelago. Question mark (?) stands for unchecked bibliographic records following recent work [27]. (DOCX)

Details and amplification conditions of COI primers used in this study. (DOCX)

Consensus Barcode sequences of the 31 reptiles species of Socotra. (DOCX)

Communication strategies of a museum without an exhibition venue. The Natural History Museum of the University of Pavia was founded in 1771 by the will of Lazzaro Spallanzani, since it has then changed its location several times. In 1961, the collections were stored, and more or less abandoned, in a restricted area. In 2000, after five years of mai...

Riassunto. A partire dagli anni '80 sono stati pubblicati numerosi atlanti erpetologici locali (regionali, provinciali) basati quasi sempre su un reticolo di 10×10 km, ma solo nel 2006, con la pubblicazione dell'atlante degli anfibi e dei rettili d'Italia, sono state ottenute carte di distribuzione sufficientemente attendibili e rappresentative del...

un éléphant âgé dep rès de deux siècles et demi n ‘est pas seulement un précieux témoignage de l'histoire de son espèce, mais aussi de la notre. plusieurs générations de conservateurs, français et italiens, se sont relayées au chevet de l'éléphant de louis x v i , sacrifiant parfois les murs de leur muséum pour qu'il arrive jusqu'à nous...

You call attention to the crisis in Italy’s natural history museums — in funding, personnel and administration, as well as in their visibility, research and purpose (Nature 515, 311–312; 2014). There is a way to prevent the long-term management of these scientific collections from deteriorating into an elitist hobby. The Italian education and herit...

Writing a review of this book is quite difficult as it is unusual in some aspects, I would define it "a field guide to the tadpole of Italy" but since its dimensions are 21 × 30 cm I am afraid that it would not fit in the category of pocket size books. The text is completely bilingual and divided in two columns with Italian on the left and Eng-lish...

Rana latastei and Rana dalmatina are two explosive breeder amphibians whose mating seasons last less than 1 month. The two species have very different repertoires of vocalisations, as Rana dalmatina uses only one advertisement call while Rana latastei uses two different vocalisations with opposite structural features. In our research, we continuall...

The Italian natural history museums are facing a critical situation, due to the progressive loss of scientific relevance, decreasing economic investments, and scarcity of personnel. This is extremely alarming, especially for ensuring the long-term preservation of the precious collections they host. Moreover, a commitment in fieldwork to increase sc...

DNA barcoding is based on the idea of using a short genetic sequence from a standard marker (cytochrome c oxidase 1 gene, COI) for species identification. It has the advantage of facilitating species identification and accelerating discovery of candidate/cryptic species in a largely reliably and cost‐efficient way, with many implications in conserv...

Die Arbeit faßt 1580 Funddaten von reptilien und Amphibien auf der insel Samos (Griechenland) aus den letzten Jahren (1993-2012) zusammen. Alle Funde wurden auf einem 1 km x 1 km raster verortet, wobei 40 % der Zellen (261 von insgesamt 648) zumindest eine Beobachtung einer Art aufwiesen. Auf dieser Datengrundlage wurden Verbreitungsmuster und ökol...

Species richness is one of the commonest measures of biodiversity, and is a basis for analyses at multiple scales. Data quality may affect estimations of species richness, but most broad-scale studies do not take sampling biases into account. We analysed reptile richness on islands that have received different sampling efforts, and assessed how inv...

In anurans, different studies have shown that species sharing morphological characteristics also show similar call characteristics. The following main features are used by females for mate choice: call duration (CD), dominant frequency (DF) and pulses repetition rate (PRR). Underwater calls of two close related species, Rana dalmatina and R. latast...

Ichthyological collections and current fish management plans used as tools for the study of alterations of fish populations in Lombardy. New local fish management plans and unpublished observations provide new data regarding changes in fish populations in Lombardy of the last decade. The endemic goby Knipowitschia punctatissima was found in the are...

By means of both classical and geometric morphometric protocols, the authors analyzed sexual dimorphism and allometry of the head of the lacertid Mesalina balfouri (Blanford, 1881), endemic to the Archipelago of Socotra. As a result, males presented an isometrically bigger head in comparison to females, whereas sexual dimorphism was non-existent in...

Libya as seen by Edoardo Zavattari. The authors propose a synthesis of the researches carried out in Libya by Edoardo Zavattari between 1927 and 1935, a period in which the scientist was active at the University of Pavia in the role of director of the Istituto and Museo di Anatomia e Fisiologia comparate. The campaigns, organized to study human a...

Riassunto. Prima caratterizzazione molecolare di popolazioni aliene invasive di Pelophylax kurtmuelleri (Gayda, 1940) e nuove segnalazioni per l'Italia. Le specie aliene rappresentano una minaccia per la biodiversità, aumentando il rischio di predazione, ibridazione, malattie e competizione per le risorse a discapito della fauna autoctona. La rana...

Societas Herpetologica Italica: twenty years of activities. The Societas Herpetologica Italica (S.H.I.) was founded 20 years ago in a period of renewed interest in herpetology and nature conservation. The need to create a new scientific partnership that could bring together the Italian herpetologists was discussed in various forms since 1991 but it...

Knowledge transfer from biologists to engineers is one of the main obstacles to the diffusion of biomimetic. An approach to overcome this obstacle is presented and discussed. This approach is based on a construct to describe high-level engineering functions stored in a relational database together with a species grouping based on a functional class...

A monographic volume on the Reptiles of Italy (870 pages), published in the most prestigious zoological book series of Italy.

The ecological status of 203 amphibian aquatic breeding sites, selected from the national database of the Societas Herpetologica Italica (SHI), was surveyed in the period 2008-2009 to assess their ecological status. Sites were randomly extracted, after stratification by the three biogeographical regions present in Italy, besides Sardinia and Sicily...

ABSTRACT. We update the knowledge on the 30 terrestrial reptile species of Socotra, an archipelago well known for its highly endemic flora and fauna. We use the records obtained during several surveys throughout all the islands of the archipelago, carried out between 2007 and 2010, as well as the bibliographic records. We recorded all the known spe...

Small and medium-sized wetlands are the election sites for the reproduction of amphibians and are therefore the key to the conservation of these animals. The disappearance of ponds and pools in addition to immediate annihilation of local amphibian populations results in a highly fragmented scenario which limits the ability of recolonization and mak...

Knowledge transfer from biologists to engineers is one of the main obstacles to the diffusion of Biomimetic. An approach to overcome this obsta-cle is presented and discussed. This approach is based on a construct to describe high-level engi-neering functions stored in a relational data-base to-gether with a species grouping based on a functional c...

A new endemic gecko of the genus Hemidactylus is described from Socotra Island (Yemen). It is a rupicolous species characterized by: medium-large size (SVL up to 60 mm), back with large trihedral, raised, strongly keeled tubercles intermixed with small granular scales, males with 6-10 preanal pores arranged in two short rows separated by 2-3 scales...

The phylogeography of the colubrid snake Hierophis viridiflavus was estimated using ND4 mtDNA sequences and a fragment of the nuclear marker beta-fibrinogen intron 7. This species has a wide distribution across the Mediterranean region, and is characterized by three distinct colour patterns ("viridiflavus", abundistic, and melanic-melanotic) with a...