Leonardo LatellaMuseo Civico di Storia Naturale, Verona · Department of Zoology
Leonardo Latella
PhD
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
November 1998 - present
Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Verona, Italy
Position
- Curator of Zoology
Publications
Publications (207)
INTRODUZIONE Le prime conoscenze sull'erpetofauna di Verona risalgono ad uno scritto di Pollini relativo al Monte Baldo e ai Lessini (1816), seguito nella seconda metà dell'800 dalle opere di Massalongo (1859), Garbini (1898) e De Betta. Fu proprio quest'ultimo a definire con diversi trattati e la sua collezione erpetologica, le specie presenti e l...
Sebbene pochi anfibi in Europa possano essere considerati troglobi o stigobi (es. Proteus anguinus), alcuni di essi sono particolarmente legati agli ambienti sotterranei, dove passano lunghi periodi (ad es. gli urodeli del genere Hydromantes) ed altri ricercano attivamente le grotte o cavità sotterranee in alcuni momenti dell’anno come nei periodi...
The ice stored in caves is a widespread yet neglected cryospheric component. The cold-adapted biodiversity of ice caves has received very little attention from research, despite the potential abundance of endemic troglobiotic and cryophilic species and their consequent sensitivity to the changing climate. In this study, we investigated the inverteb...
In the Lessini Mountains, the southernmost prealpine area in the Veneto region, thousands of caves are found, many of which have been extensively studied from the biological point of view. Numerous studies have been carried out on taxonomic and biogeographic aspects over the last hundred years. Two caves, in particular, have been found to be extrem...
La figura di Giuseppe Scortecci, zoologo italiano vissuto nei decenni a cavallo dei due conflitti mondiali, viene presentata nei suoi contributi di morfologia e anatomia comparata, tassonomia ed ecologia applicati all’erpetologia. Dall’esame della produzione scientifica di questo autore, compresa soprattutto tra il 1928 ed il 1946, emerge la sua ca...
Viene presentata la prima revisione della Checklist degli Anfipodi dei mari italiani, la cui ultima versione risale al 2010. Gli Anfipodi sono crostacei che si diversificano dal punto di vista ecologico e biologico, costituendo uno dei gruppi dominanti in habitat marini bentonici. Con la loro elevata ricchezza quali-quantitativa svolgono un ruolo c...
emi-terrestrial talitrid amphipods of the genus Cryptorchesta Lowry & Fanini, 2013 associated with
freshwater-soaked leaf liter are quite common in the Eastern Mediterranean where they have the widest specific
distributon. Afer the taxonomic revision and redescripton by Lowry and Myers (2019), the genus Cryptorchesta
includes five species: C. cavim...
L'introduzione al leporello di Angela Maria Russo dedicata a Alfred Russel Wallace in occasione del duecentesimo anniversario della sua nascita. / The introduction to the accordion book by Angela Maria Russo dedicated to Alfred Russel Wallce on the occasionon of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.
Plastic pollution in the environment has become a much-discussed issue worldwide. In recent decades, the contamination of all environments has become increasingly evident, in particular, that of water is highly concerning. Ingestion by different animal species under natural conditions has also been demonstrated. Among these is the Talitrid Amphipod...
Trentino is an area that has long been the subject of naturalistic research into subterranean environments. Numerous biospeleologists have devoted themselves to the study of its
subterranean faunas. A frst annotated list of cave-dwelling species was drawn up by Conci in 1951, then taken up in popularised form by Tomasi in 1953. Since then, much fur...
Preliminary analysis on subterranean fauna in the Brenta Dolomites (Trentino, Italy)
The first biological surveys in the caves of the Brenta Dolomites date back to the
1950s, when the first research was carried out in the Bus de la Spia and the Grotta del
Torrione di Vallesinella. Since then, few other caves have been studied from a faunistic
point...
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...
We explore the population of the troglophilic harvestman Ischyropsalis ravasinii inhabiting the Buso del Valon ice cave located in the Italian Prealps. Spatial and temporal distributions of the specimens are investigated in relation to the variation of environmental abiotic conditions in the cave, such as the seasonal temperature and substrate surf...
Mummified remains of relevant historical figures are nowadays an important source of information to retrace data concerning their private life and health, especially when historical archives are not available. Next-generation-sequencing was proved to be a valuable tool to unravel the characteristics of these individuals through their genetic herita...
In this article, the checklist of alien fauna and flora in the city of Verona is presented. The list includes feld observations, specimens preserved in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of Verona, and data retrieved from literature. Information about the introduction pathways and the year of frst record for this area are included as w...
Although the frst reports on the presence of bats in the city of Verona date back to the frst half of the 19th century, no study aimed at the knowledge of the diversity and distribution of bats had been conducted so far in the urban area. The research,
presented in this paper, was carried out by means of bioacoustic surveys conducted in the summer...
Mummified remains of relevant historical figures are nowadays an important source of information to retrace data concerning their private life and health, especially when historical archives are not available. Next-generation-sequencing was proved to be a valuable tool to unravel the characteristics of these individuals through their genetic herita...
During his long period of work at the Museum of Verona, Attilio Mottolli collected and prepared a wide amount of mi-cro-mammals from various regions of northeastern Italy. His collection includes over 5.000 specimens belonging to different orders of mammals of which micro-mammals are the most abundant. The specimens in this collection have been stu...
Zangheri, Museums, Biodiversity and Biogeography
The observation and documentation of the natural phenomena of Romagna in the first half of the last century and the creation of the Museum of Romagna have been a fundamental contribution to the knowledge of the biological diversity of Romagna. Pietro Zangheri's contribution to the knowledge of Italia...
The arachnological collections of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Verona, Italy, contains roughly 20000 vials, including approximately 2000 species of Araneae and other Arachnida from all over the world. Within the collection, type material represents an important proportion with a count of more than 373 type series. All samples are distribu...
Anthropogenic environmental change is leading to changes in distribution for many organisms. While this is frequently discussed for prominent organisms of high conservation value, the same is true for the many cryptic species that rarely figure in debates on the human impact. One such cryptic taxon is the European Ptomaphagus sericatus (Chaudoir, 1...
In the framework of a long-term project launched by the Stelvio National Park for monitoring the spatio-temporal patterns in plant, arthropod and vertebrate species assemblages, the results on the sampled cholevid species are reported. The abundance of specimens and the distribution of species has been studied in relation to nine environmental vari...
Il riscaldamento globale influenza decisamente la distribuzione e le
dimensioni dei ghiacciai in tutto il mondo e la presenza e distribuzione della fauna ad essi associata. Lo studio ecologico delle grotte con ghiaccio diventa quindi di particolare interesse soprattutto in una
regione prealpina come i Monti Lessini.
Nel corso di successive visite c...
Freshwater communities all over the world suffer from anthropogenic stresses such as pesticide contamination. This stress acts as a selective force, inducing alteration in both the composition of species and their relative abundances. In the present work, we tested the genotoxic effect of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup® on two freshwater ga...
Provisional programme
Timeless collections
Verona (Italy) 28 June 2019
Nella valutazione della sostenibilità ambientale i metodi di indagine biologici assumono sempre più rilevanza e vengono utilizzati insieme ai tradizionali metodi chimici e fisici. Questi metodi biologici prevedono l'impiego di bioindicatori, vale a dire organismi, o parti di essi, o popolamenti naturali che danno informazioni sulla qualità dell'amb...
This study aimed to characterise the composition, structure and trophic organisation of the macroinvertebrate communities of two pasture ponds – one natural and one artificial – in the Italian Prealps. Faunal composition was studied during the snow-free period in 2003–2004 and compared with data collected in 1984–1985. Insects (i.e., Coleoptera, Di...
The SAC Val Galina Progno Borago is part of the Natura 2000 network established by the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC.
In the present paper the priority habitats and the species included in the various annexes of the above mentioned Directive are reported. Currently 19 animal species have been recorded and four different habitats have been identifed.
Nel 2030 dovranno essere nutrite più di 9 miliardi di persone, e
con esse i miliardi di animali allevati per la loro alimentazione, si
rende quindi sempre più pressante l’esigenza di trovare fonti di
sostentamento a basso impatto ambientale ed economico e con
elevato valore nutritivo. Molti ricercatori e organizzazioni, come la
stessa FAO, hanno id...
The Buso del Valon cave (438V/VR) opens at 1699 m a.s.l. in the Lessinian Mountains ( 45°N, 11°E) and is one of the few karstic caves of the Venetian region preserving a permanent ice body (ZORZIN et al., 2015). Within the scenario of global warming, strongly influencing the distribution and size of glaciers worldwide, the ecological study of ice c...
Semi-terrestrial talitrid amphipods of the genus Cryptorchestia (sensu Lowry and Fanini 2013) associated with freshwater-soaked leaf litter were known to occur in inland lakes of Turkey and at the shores of the Black Sea. Before 2013 they had been reported as Orchestiacavimana and later as Cryptorchestiacavimana . In our phylogenetic tree, inferred...
The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Verona (Italy) houses unique zoological collections of invertebrates. Among them the arachnological collections represent an excellence, boasting thousands of specimens and hundreds of species of arachnids (mostly spiders) from all over the world. Within the stored samples, types represents a conspicuous and c...
The species commonly known as Orchestia cavimana belonging to the Talitridae family (Amphipoda) has been used as crustacean model species. Here, we point out that this talitrid amphipod species is related to species in the genus Orchestia but now falls under what is described as Cryptorchestia garbinii, which is a different species from the nominal...
Diversity and distribution of chironomid fauna (Diptera: Chironomidae) in 36 springs in the Italian Prealps (Veneto and Trentino NE-Italy, 46°N, 10-11°E) was studied in relation to altitude, spring type and grade of disturbance. The springs were located between 62 and 1710 m a.s.l. of altitude, in three calcareous mountain areas (Baldo Mt, Lessini...
Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that has provided the universal naming and classification system of biodiversity for centuries and continues effectively to accommodate new knowledge. A recent publication by Garnett and Christidis [1] expressed concerns regarding the difficulty that taxonomic changes represent for conservation efforts and propos...
The epikarst crustacean fauna from four Sicilian caves (Conza, Entella, Molara, and Zubbia del Cavallo caves) and four caves in the Lessinian Massif in the Venetian Prealps (Covolo della Croce, Ponte di Veja, Roverè Mille, Buso della Rana caves) was recently investigated. The two groups of caves differ in their environmental conditions: the Sicilia...
In order to investigate the possible implications of the trophic supply in the distribution and adaptation of the organisms in caves, we analysed the gut microbiota composition of Neobathyscia pasai and Neobathyscia mancinii, two subterranean Leptodirini endemic to Lessini Mountains (NE-Italy). The two species exhibit different distribution inside...
The genus Bathysciola is widely distributed in the northern Mediterranean region, although its range extends east to the Caucasus and Iran. More than 130 species belonging to this genus are actually known in the whole geographic distribution area and 45 species are distributed in continental and insular Italy. The species belonging to the Bathyscio...
The diversity and distribution of chironomids at spring’s source (eukrenal) were studied in relation to environmental factors, including different disturbance sources (water abstraction, agriculture, pasture etc.) in 37 springs in the Italian Prealps (Veneto and Trentino NE-Italy, 46°N, 10-11°E). The springs are located in three mountain areas (Bal...
The diversity and distribution of chironomids (Diptera, Chironomidae) were studied in relation to environmental factors in 36 springs, in different status of conservation, in the Italian Prealps (Veneto and Trentino NE-Italy, 46°N, 10-11°E), in four mountain areas (Baldo Mts, Lessini Mts, Pasubio and Pastello Mts.) within 62 and 1710 m a.s.l. Sampl...
Panels for a temporary exhibition on the elephants of the Museo di Storia Naturale of Verona
A new Cryptorchestia species, Cryptorchestia ruffoi Latella & Vonk, sp. n. from the island of Rhodes in southeastern Greece, can be distinguished on the basis of morphological and phylogenetic data. Morphological analysis and DNA sequencing of mitochondrial and nuclear protein-coding genes indicated that this species is related to C. cavimana (Cypr...
A three-year study on the presence and distribution in space and time of snow flies was carried out inside the ice cave Buso del Valon (Lessini Mountains, 45°N, 11°E). An updated checklist, based on both published data and new records on the distribution in the caves of the Lessini Mountains in the Verona Province of the species belonging to the Ch...
The present work took into consideration and discusses the issue of the so-called "biological invasions", namely the introduction and diffusion of non-indigenous species and their negative effects on the environment and biodiversity. It reports definitions and provide terminological hints on the above mentioned subject, giving examples of environme...
The Hong Lin area was the object of numerous scientific expeditions conducted by the Museum of Natural History of Verona between 1990’s and 2000’s. During this time the area was closed for tourism and their study was possible due to the collaboration with Guizhou Normal University of Guiyang and Science and Technology Department of Guizhou Province...
Recent studies suggest that diet-induced changes in time and environment impact strongly on the mammalian gut microbiota. This variation may ultimately influence host ecology by altering nutritional status and health. Wild and semi-wild animal populations provide a great opportunity for understanding these interactions. In this preliminary study fa...
La sezione di Zoologia del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona conduce già da molti anni ricerche sulla fauna presente all'interno delle cavità sotterranee più importanti della regione Veneto. A partire dal 2005 sono stati portati avanti diversi studi all'interno della Grotta A del Ponte di Veja (Sant'Anna d'Alfaedo, VR), scelta per la presen...
La capacità di una nuova specie di stabilirsi all'interno di una comunità può dipendere dalla sua tolleranza alle condizioni del nuovo ambiente e dai contaminanti in esso presenti. Di conseguenza, l’approccio ecotossicologico può essere funzionale alla valutazione del potenziale impatto ecologico di una specie aliena su una comunità, utilizzando il...
TheBusodelValon(438VVR)opensat1699ma.s.l.intheLessinianMountainsandisoneofthefewkarsticcavesoftheVenetianregionpreservingapermanenticebody.Globalclimatechanges,stronglyinfluencingdistributionanddimensionofglaciersworldwide,suggestedstartingamultidisciplinaryresearchfocusingonclimaticandfaunisticaspectsofsuchacave.Thestudywasoriginallyproposedbythes...
Riassunto. Le collezioni zoologiche del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona comprendono circa tre milioni di esemplari e la loro origine risale alla metà del sedicesimo secolo. Inizialmente poco consistenti, si sono poi arricchite a partire dalla metà dell'Ottocento grazie al contributo di numerosi naturalisti veronesi. Le raccolte vertebrato...
Dopo la pubblicazione dei risultati delle ricerche sul Monte Pastello (Lessinia occidentale) e sul Monte Summano (Lessinia orientale), il Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona ha intrapreso una serie di ricerche multidisciplinari sul Monte Carega e sul territorio adiacente (valli di Revolto e Fraselle, a Sud, e val di Ronchi, ad Ovest) per appr...
The current knowledge of the fauna of Cholevinae Kirby, 1837 is scarce and fragmentary. A synthesis of our knowledge of the Cholevinae fauna of the Maritime Alps is presented in the form of an annotated and updated checklist, based on both published and new records. Biogeographical and taxonomic remarks are provided, stressing the presence of five...
Much has been said and written about Sandro Ruff o in these fi ve years since his
passing, but his scientifi c work has not been collected and organized in its entirety
yet. Th is publication therefore includes the bibliographical references to all printed
works, environmental project reports, and internal reports, as well as volumes and
series coo...
The distribution of Apteroloma anglorossicum (Semenov, 1890), A. harmandi (Portevin, 1903) and A. sillemi Jeannel, 1935 in central Asia and along the Himalayas is summarized, and the collecting circumstances and ecology of all three species from Gilgit District, Pakistan are described in detail. Revised diagnoses of all three species are provided,...
The scarcity of the isopod material of the fossil sites from the “Pesciara di Bolca” (Verona Province, Northern Italy) did not leave much room up to now for conclusions concerning the systematic relationship of this fauna. In this study, we reinvestigate fossils of the cymothoidan Palaega acuticauda Secretan, 1975 and the sphaeromatidean Heterospha...
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...