Matteo Riccardo Di Nicola

The Veterinary Medical Research Institute for Piedmont, Liguria and the Aosta Valley

In the last years, the number of snake species present on the Italian territory and their systematic situation have gone through several changes, both for the discovery of new entities and for the attribution of different taxonomic positions to already known taxa. This work offers a revised and updated dichotomous key for the identification of Ital...

Una guida fotografica di rapida consultazione ma completa e aggiornata alla situazione tassonomica più recente, che permette il riconoscimento di tutte le specie di anfibi e rettili italiani tramite immagini appositamente realizzate in natura. Le numerose fotografie, unite a testi concisi ma esaustivi, guidano appassionati e naturalisti esordienti...

Una guida fotografica rivolta a tutti gli appassionati di natura che descrive con schede sintetiche ma dettagliate tutte le specie di anfibi e rettili presenti in Sardegna. Le fotografie sono state appositamente realizzate allo scopo, in Sardegna.

In 2009, snakebites were included in the list of the World Health Organization (WHO) neglected diseases. Dermatological literature lacks current and up to date articles about snakebites and their management, despite the fact that dermatologists, especially from rural hospitals, can be called into the emergency room to consult the management of susp...

Snakebites in Europe are mostly due to bites from Viperidae species of the genus Vipera. This represents a neglected public health hazard with poorly defined incidence, morbidity and mortality. In Europe, fourteen species of “true vipers” (subfamily Viperinae) are present, eleven of which belong to the genus Vipera. Amongst these, the main medicall...

Chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), is a significant threat to global amphibian populations, leading to widespread declines and extinctions. In the spring of 2023, Bd presence was detected in different amphibian species within two protected areas near Turin, Piedmont, Italy, following an unusual mortality eve...

Background and Objectives: Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) have significantly advanced the treatment of various dermatological conditions by modulating the JAK-STAT signalling pathway. While these inhibitors have proven effective, they also pose challenges due to associated increase in serum lipid levels and relative potential cardiovascular risks....

The Western whip snake (Hierophis viridiflavus) is a colubroid snake typically considered aglyphous and non-venomous, although this is currently a subject of debate. Indeed, the maxillary dentition of this species has recently been described as opisthoglyphous due to the presence of enlarged rear maxillary teeth, reportedly characterised by promine...

The Brahminy blind snake, Indotyphlops braminus, is the most widely introduced reptile globally. Its spread has been facilitated by the international plant trade, owing to its ability to inhabit plant pots. In Europe, I. braminus is found in Spain (mainland Spain and Canary Islands: Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and La Gomera), P...

Non-front-fanged snakes (NFFS) have long been overlooked by snake venom research, likely due to most of them being considered non-medically relevant for humans. The paucity of information about composition and activities of NFFS venoms and oral secretions makes it difficult to assess whether a given species can inflict medically significant bites....

European cave salamanders, classified under the genus Speleomantes, are primarily endemic to Italy, with one sub-endemic species also occurring in southeast France. These terrestrial salamanders seek refuge in subterranean habitats with stable, humid, and cool microclimates, especially during periods of high heat or dryness. Above-ground sightings...

This paper analyses the variation of the mitochondrial gene COI and the colour pattern Scolopendra cingulata in Sicily and Aspromonte (Calabria), with the aim of investigating the variability of the species in the study area and tracing possible dispersal events across the Strait of Messina. Three clades have been identified: S/M, including animals...

Background: Hypertrophic scars and keloids, common complications following median sternotomy for cardiac surgery, significantly impact patient quality of life due to their aesthetic and symptomatic burden. Recent advancements in laser therapy have made it a prominent option for managing these complex scars, yet a comprehensive understanding of its...

Background and Objectives: Amelanotic/hypomelanotic melanomas (AHMs) account for 2–8% of all cutaneous melanomas. Due to their clinical appearance and the lack of specific dermoscopic indicators, AHMs are challenging to diagnose, particularly in thinner cutaneous lesions. The aim of our study was to evaluate the clinicopathological and dermoscopic...

Ophidiomyces ophidiicola, the causative agent of ophidiomycosis, poses a potential threat to wild snakes worldwide. This study aimed to retrospectively investigate the prevalence of O. ophidiicola in archived snake moults collected from the San River Valley in the Bieszczady Mountains, Poland, from 2010 to 2012. Using qPCR for O. ophidiicola detect...

Melanism, the process of heavier melanin deposition, can interact with climate variation at both micro and macro scales, ultimately influencing color evolution in organisms. While the ecological processes regulating melanin production in relation to climate have been extensively studied, intraspecific variations of melanism are seldom considered. S...

Variation in animal colouration, which holds ecological and evolutionary significance, is evident in snakes, including the polytypic and highly polymorphic asp viper Vipera aspis. This species, currently acknowledged with four subspecies, features three of them (V. a. aspis, V. a. francisciredi and V. a. hugyi) within the Italian territory, each di...

Simple Summary Reptiles usually carry Salmonella without showing any signs of infection. In this case, an adult male corn snake died 48 h after eating a feeder mouse bought online. The snake and mouse livers tested positive for Salmonella, specifically Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Midway. A genome analysis revealed that the two sampl...

The genus Vipera encompasses most species of medically significant venomous snakes of Europe, with Italy harbouring four of them. Envenomation by European vipers can result in severe consequences, but underreporting and the absence of standardised clinical protocols hinder effective snakebite management. This study provides an updated, detailed set...

Background Genital involvement in atopic dermatitis(AD) can have a significant impact on the patient’s quality of life. However, inspection of genital areas is not usually conducted during routine examination and patients may be reluctant to inform the clinician or show this area. Objective to evaluate the efficacy of tralokinumab in AD patients w...

For decades, the evolutionary role of melanism in reptiles has been highly debated. According to the thermal melanism hypothesis, melanistic phenotypes should provide thermal advantages, thus positively impacting various biological aspects of these individuals. Nevertheless, these benefits seem to be countered by environmental constraints and preda...

Although extensive research has been conducted on snake venoms, the effects of bites inflicted by non-front-fanged colubroid snakes remain incompletely understood, particularly for species of uncertain medical relevance. The Western Whipsnake (Hierophis viridiflavus) is a colubrid snake typically classified as non-venomous and harmless to humans. N...

Introduction: Multicentric Castleman’s disease (MCD) with cutaneous involvement has rarely been discussed in dermatologic literature, with few reports. Cutaneous lesions in MCD may induce deep scars, causing a significant impact in the daily life of the patients. The treatment of Castleman’s disease (CD) is usually a challenge, especially in case o...

Ecology Figure S1. Study area. The area in which springs were surveyed, both during day and night since June 2020, is represented by the red dot in the Europe wide view and by the soft orange at the local scale. Due to the high sensitiveness of the olm to poaching for collecting, exact locations of the springs are not shown, as recommended by Lungh...

Despite traditional studies assuming that animals specialized to live underground are strictly bound to the subterranean environment there is growing evidence that the ecological separation between cave-dwelling and surface animals is not always clearcut, with some surface species actively exploiting underground environments for specific tasks/stag...

Background There is limited epidemiological evidence on outcomes associated with dupilumab exposure during pregnancy; monitoring pregnancy outcomes in large populations is required. Objective To investigate the potential association between exposure to dupilumab in pregnant women with atopic dermatitis and any adverse pregnancy, neonatal, congenit...

EFSA along with several national agencies and academic partners have developed an open-access platform: ‘TKPlate 1.0’ that integrates a number of physiologically-based kinetic models and toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic models used in human health, animal health and ecological risk assessment. These models allow the derivation of quantitative metrics re...

Chronic pruritus (CP) is one of the most frequent symptoms among dermatological conditions, capable of reducing the quality of life (QoL). CP may be induced by atopic dermatitis or other dermatological and/or non-dermatological conditions. In this article, we report the case of a patient affected by generalized CP, characterised by multiple papulo-...

Marini, D., Di Nicola, M. R., Crocchianti, V., Di Criscio, M., Ruegg, J. & Marenzoni, M. L. (2023). Ophidiomyces ophidiicola from Lake Garda (Italy) belongs to Clade I. Abstract book of the 5th International Conference of the European College of Veterinary Microbiology (5th ICECVM), Bled, Slovenia, 21-23 September 2023. p. 48.

Domestic dogs Canis familiaris may cause a range of impacts on wildlife through preda-tion, competition, pathogen transmission, harassment and hybridisation with wolves and other wild canids, yet such effects are less known than those of other domestic species. In this work, we have combined citizen science data and information collected by scienti...

Porokeratosis is a group of well-known clinically distinct entities, characterised by different clinical aspects, but sharing a single common histological aspect, namely the cornoid lamella. Usually, porokeratosis occurs in the limbs and trunk, while it rarely involves the face, especially as an exclusive, single, and solitary lesion. We report the...

The Sardinian grass snake, Natrix helvetica cetti, is an endangered endemic snake subspecies with a restricted and highly fragmented geographic distribution. Information on its ecology and detailed geographic distribution are scarce and may negatively impact on its conservation status. Therefore, a literature review on its taxonomy, morphology, eco...

Biomonitoring is the qualitative observation and the measurement of biosphere parameters aimed at modelling the environment, evaluating its quality, and studying the effects of alterations on different ecological levels. In this work, trace metal concentrations were assessed using non-destructive biomonitoring tools as blood and feathers of the all...

Jellyfish are aquatic animals of the phylum Cnidaria found in seas all over the world. They are characterized by the presence of cnidocytes, cells that contain a secretory organelle, the cnidocyst, mainly used for predation and defense purposes. An adult female patient presented to our Unit of Dermatology, for a 10 days-old history of macular-eryth...

Introduction Lynch syndrome (LS) is a rare inherited condition associated with mutations in DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes. In LS, MLH1 and MSH2 are involved in about 90% of mutation, while MSH6 is involved in 10% of mutations [1,2]. Approximately 2-5% of colon-rectal cancers present underlying LS; at the same time, LS patients have the risk of al...

The amount and phospholipid composition of circulating EVs derived from 30 psoriatic patients (PSOEVs) and from 10 HD was different. PSOEVs are more concentrated respect to HD. Exo in psoriatic patients (PSOExo) showed increased levels of phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and lysophosphatidylcholine...

Localized scleroderma (also known as morphea) is a chronic autoimmune disorder characterized by depressed, fibrotic, and dyschromic cutaneous lesions. It has a significant impact on the patient’s daily life due to the unaesthetic evolution of the cutaneous lesions. Morphea is clinically divided into linear, circumscribed (plaque), generalized, pans...

Europe presents a high number of venomous and poisonous animals able to elicit medically relevant symptoms in humans. However, since most of the accidents involving venomous or poisonous animals in Europe are unreported, their incidence and morbidity are severely overlooked. Here we provide an overview of the European vertebrate species of greatest...

Ophidiomycosis is an emerging infectious disease caused by the fungus Ophidiomyces ophidiicola (Oo). To date, Oo presence or associated disease condition has been recorded in wild and/or captive snakes from North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, but the data is still scarce outside the Nearctic. Although Italy is a country with a high snake bio...

Understanding speciation is one of the cornerstones of biological diversity research. Currently, speciation is often understood as a continuous process of divergence that continues until genetic or other incompatibilities minimize or prevent interbreeding. The Palearctic snake genus Natrix is an ideal group to study speciation, as it comprises taxa...

Human health and animal health risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals use the same steps as single-substance risk assessment, namely problem formulation, exposure assessment, hazard assessment and risk characterisation. The main unique feature of combined RA is the assessment of combined exposure, toxicity and risk. Recently, th...

The European leaf-toed gecko Euleptes europaea is a gecko with typically nocturnal habits, found mainly on rocky walls, under barks and under rocks in Mediterranean habitats. The species is endemic to the western Mediterranean and has a relict and mainly insular distribution. Its presence in Italy is known for Liguria, Sardinia and Tuscany; there a...

Despite the fact that Lynch Syndrome (LS) patients may also develop extra-colonic malignancies, research evaluating the association between LS and skin cancers is currently very limited. We performed a monocentric clinical and dermoscopic study involving 42 LS patients which referred to the Dermatology Unit for cutaneous screenings. In total, 22 pa...

Cutaneous leiomyoma is a benign tumor, mainly composed of smooth muscle cells and arising from the arrector pili muscle of hair follicles. The diagnosis of leiomyomas is of paramount importance, as they can often be associated with underlying malignancies (e.g., renal cell carcinoma, leiomyosarcoma) and specific genetic mutations. We report the cas...

Zamenis situla in its habitat in Apulia, Italy. Cover image based on the Original Article: An updated dichotomous key to the snakes of Europe, by Di Nicola et al. Photo Credit: Matteo Riccardo Di Nicola.

In snakes, melanism can improve thermoregulation efficiency, reproductive success and provide additional protection to internal organs from solar radiation. For these reasons, such conditions could be beneficial for animals living in both cold and warm environments. For widely distributed species of grass snake (genus Natrix), several single encoun...

The Milos viper (Macrovipera schweizeri) is an endangered species restricted to the western side of the Cyclades archipelago, endemic to the islands of Kimolos, Milos, Polýaigos and Sifnos. This threatened viper has been at the centre of several studies aimed to better understand its peculiar biology and ecology. Through the extensive analysis of t...

Scorpions are the oldest known arachnids and include some of the earliest invertebrates to have become fully terrestrial, with fossil records dating back to the Silurian period approximately 444–419 million years ago. Scorpion anatomy features two main segments: a frontal prosoma, to which eight legs are attached, and an opisthosoma, divided in mes...

New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) provide tools for supporting both human and environmental risk assessment (HRA and ERA). This short review provides recent insights regarding the use of NAMs in ERA of food and feed chemicals. We highlight the usefulness of tiered methods supporting weight-of-evidence approaches in relation to problem formulation (...

Simplified molecular input-line entry systems (SMILES) are the representation of the molecular structure that can be used to establish quantitative structure-property/activity relationships (QSPRs/QSARs) for various endpoints expressed as mathematical functions of the molecular architecture. Quasi-SMILES is extending the traditional SMILES by means...

The only Italian population of the Eastern Montpellier snake is found on Lampedusa, a small island in the Strait of Sicily, Mediterranean Sea. This population is currently attributed to Malpolon insignitus based only on morphology. Here, we present the first genetic data on this population, based on mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12S ribosomal RNA...

Barred grass snake (Natrix helvetica), one of the European species susceptible to ophidiomycosis and able to shed the fungus in the environment. Photo by Matteo R. Di Nicola. Cover of 'European Journal of Wildlife Research, Volume 68 - Number 5 - October 20222', based on the manuscript: 'Ophidiomyces ophidiicola detection and infection: a global re...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) and psoriasis (PsO) are among the most common diseases in the daily clinical practice. Usually, AD and PsO are reported as two diseases that cannot coexist in the same patient because this requires the activation of opposing inflammatory pathways. Anyway, some reports highlight how AD and PsO may coexist in the same patient o...

Ophidiomyces ophidiicola (Oo) is one of the most relevant fungal pathogens for snakes. It is the etiological agent of ophidiomycosis, an emerging disease causing dysecdysis, skin abnormalities, crusting cutaneous lesions, and ulcerations. Despite this major tegumentary “tropism”, Oo infection can be systemic and it is capable of inducing visceral l...

Di Nicola M.R. & Ribó Ferrer J. (2022): First case of predation of the Tyrrhenian endemic Sardinian tree frog Hyla sarda by an alien water frog Pelophylax sp. in northern Sardinia, Italy. The Herpetological Bullettin, 161: 40-41. doi: 10.33256/hb161.4041.

Amphibians and reptiles are among the vertebrates with greater extinction risk (respectively, 41% and 21% of the species are threatened according to IUCN 2022). Therefore, it is essential to implement strategies to mitigate such extinction risk, through multidisciplinary approaches. This is one of the objectives of the project “AMPHIDEB: Developmen...

Di Nicola M.R., Zabbia T., Mezzadri S., Cerullo A., Bruni G. (2022). Male-male interactions in Alpine Salamanders, Salamandra atra atra (Laurenti, 1768), with an overview of the main cases reported for the genus Salamandra (Amphibia: Salamandridae). Herpetology Notes, 15: 601-604.

The treatment of early-stage penile carcinoma is usually represented by wide excision or partial penectomy with or without inguinal lymph node dissection. However, laser ablation of the tumor may have a prominent role as an organ-sparing approach. In this regard, the combination of UltraPulse CO₂ laser and photodynamic therapy (PDT) may...

The cover image is based on the Original Article Explaining declines of newt abundance in northern Italy, by Mattia Falaschi et al. Cover Image: Italian crested newt (Triturus carnifex) from northern Italy. Photo Credit: Matteo Riccardo Di Nicola.

The ocellated skink (Chalcides ocellatus) is a widespread lizard, naturally distributed between the Maghreb and coastal Pakistan, with few insular populations in the Mediterranean coastal area. Some populations of this species have also been recorded in peninsular Italy, Campania and Southern Tuscany due to accidental introductions via touristic an...

Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin disorder affecting children and adults. To date no approved biomarkers for diagnosis of this disease and follow up of patients have been translated into clinical practice. Recently, extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by all cells and present in almost all biological fluids are playing a cr...

This work presents an updated dichotomous key to all snake species of Europe, based on morpho-logical, morphometric and distributional characters. It gathers data from both the last dichotomouskeys concerning European snake species and every following paper giving updates on taxonomicclassification or the occurrence of new allochthonous species. Th...

Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus is the only snake eagle that nests in the Palearctic. Its diet has been studied in several European countries and it is essentially based on reptiles. The aims of this work were to characterise the feeding habits of Short-toed Eagle breeding in the Tolfa Mountains (Central Italy) including a comparison of the die...

The Southern smooth snake, Coronella girondica, is a small-sized colubrid found in Northwest Africa and Southwest Europe. Mitochondrial DNA-based studies showed that the species can be split into five clades: two from Northwest Africa (one Moroccan and one Tunisian-Algerian) and three from Europe (one in the south-west of the Iberian Peninsula, one...