Filippo Silvestri (22 June 1873 – 10 June 1949) was an Italian

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as ara ...

. He specialised in world

Protura The Protura, or proturans, and sometimes nicknamed coneheads, are very small (0.6-1.5mm long), soil-dwelling animals, so inconspicuous they were not noticed until the 20th century. The Protura constitute an order of hexapods that were previously ...

Thysanura Thysanura is the now deprecated name of what was, for over a century, recognised as an order in the class Insecta. The two constituent groups within the former order, the Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) and the Zygentoma (silverfish and fireb ...

Diplura The order Diplura ("two-pronged bristletails") is one of three orders of non-insect hexapods within the class Entognatha (alongside Collembola (springtails) and Protura). The name "diplura", or "two tails", refers to the characteristic pair of ...

and

Isoptera Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes ( eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blat ...

, but also worked on

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typic ...

Myriapoda Myriapods () are the members of subphylum Myriapoda, containing arthropods such as millipedes and centipedes. The group contains about 13,000 species, all of them terrestrial. The fossil record of myriapods reaches back into the late Silurian ...

and Italian

Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

. He is also noted for describing and naming the previously unknown order

Zoraptera The insect order Zoraptera, commonly known as angel insects, contains small and soft bodied insects with two forms: winged with wings sheddable as in termites, dark and with eyes (compound) and ocelli (simple); or wingless, pale and without eyes ...

. In 1938 he was nominated to the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Pontifical Academy of Sciences ( it, Pontificia accademia delle scienze, la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mat ...

, the scientific academy of the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

. Silvestri was born in

Bevagna Bevagna is a town and ''comune'' in the central part of the Italian province of Perugia (Umbria), in the flood plain of the Topino river. Bevagna is south-east of Perugia, west of Foligno, north-north-west of Montefalco, south of Assisi a ...

. A keen young naturalist, he became assistant to

Giovanni Battista Grassi Giovanni Battista Grassi (27 March 1854 – 4 May 1925) was an Italian physician and zoologist, best known for his pioneering works on parasitology, especially on malariology. He was Professor of Comparative Zoology at the University of Catania ...

(1854–1925), Director of the Institute of Anatomical Research of the University of Rome. In 1904, Silvestri became Director of the Institute of Entomology and Zoology at the agricultural college in Portici (the Laboratorio di Zoologia Generale e Agraria, now Faculty of Agriculture), a position he held for 45 years. He discovered

polyembryony Polyembryony is the phenomenon of two or more embryos developing from a single fertilized egg. Due to the embryos resulting from the same egg, the embryos are identical to one another, but are genetically diverse from the parents. The genetic differ ...

in the 1930s while working on ''Litomatix truncatellus'' Hymenoptera. His collection is in the

Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Giacomo Doria is a natural history museum in Genoa, northern Italy. It is named after the naturalist Giacomo Doria, who was the founder and the curator for over forty years. The museum was founded in 1867 and c ...

. Duplicates of Isoptera are in the

Swedish Museum of Natural History The Swedish Museum of Natural History ( sv, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, literally, the National Museum of Natural History), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The ...

and a few

Diplopoda Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a resu ...

(millipede) types are in the

Museum für Naturkunde The Natural History Museum (german: Museum für Naturkunde) is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major muse ...

Berlin. Filippo Sivestri has been commemorated in the names of the following: a square in his home town, Bevagna; a high school in

Portici Portici (; ) is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Naples in Italy. It is the site of the Portici Royal Palace. Geography Portici lies at the foot of Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples, about southeast of Naples itself. There i ...

, the town where he worked and died; and a street in Rome (00134 Borgo Lotti). A species of South American worm lizard, ''

Amphisbaena silvestrii Silvestri's worm lizard (''Amphisbaena silvestrii'') is a species of worm lizard in the family Amphisbaenidae. The species is endemic to South America. Etymology The specific name, ''silvestrii'', is in honor of Italian entomologist Filipp ...

'' is named in his honor.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Silvestri", p. 244). Publications on termites. *Nota preliminare sui termitidi sud-americani. Bollettino dei Musei di Zoologia e Anatomia Comparata della Università di Torino XVI(389):1-8.( 1901) *Contribuzione alla conoscenza dei Termiti e Termitofili dell'America Meridionale. ''Redia'' 1:1-234. .( 1903) *''Isoptera''. In: ''Die Fauna Südwest-Australia''. Vol. 2, edited by W. Michaelsen & R. Hartmeyer. pp. 279–314. .( 1909)
Contribuzione alla conoscenza dei Termitidi e Termitofili dell'Africa occidentale.'' Bollettino del Laboratorio di Zoologia General e Agraria, Portici'' 9:1-146
.( 1914) *Descriptiones termitum in Anglorum Guiana. ''Zoologica'' 3(16):307-321. .( 1923) * ''Descrizioni di due nuove specie di Isoptera dell'Africa.'' Bollettino del Laboratorio di Zoologia Generale e Agraria, Portici 21:91-95. .( 1928) *Nuovo concetto di fasi corrispondenti all'età della colonia negli individui di una stessa specie componenti una colonia di termiti e descrizione di due specie nuove di Syntermes. ''Bollettino del Laboratorio di Entomologia Agraria, Portici'' 6:1-14 (1946).

References

1873 births 1949 deaths People from Bevagna Italian entomologists Hymenopterists Myriapodologists Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences {{entomologist-stub