Achille Griffini (10 August 1870 – 24 June 1932) was an Italian zoologist and high school teacher who specialized in ichthyology but also took an interest in entomology. He wrote on the taxonomy of the

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – gras ...

, particularly the

Stenopelmatidae Stenopelmatidae is a family of large, mostly flightless orthopterans that includes the Jerusalem crickets. Two genera: '' Ammopelmatus'' and the type genus '' Stenopelmatus'' are found in the New World. '' Oryctopus'' and '' Sia'' are Old World ...

. Griffini was born in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

to Eugenio and Clarissa Griffini. After being educated as a teacher he graduated in the natural sciences from the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

in 1893 where he studied under

Michele Lessona Michele Lessona (20 September 1823, Venaria Reale, Piedmont – 20 July 1894, Turin) was an Italian zoologist. Michele Lessona became a specialist in amphibians. His accomplishments include translating certain works of Darwin, for example, ''Th ...

(1823-1894), who was among the early Italian evolutionists. He was offered a position as a teacher but having taught earlier he took up a position of assistant at the museum of zoology and comparative anatomy at the Royal University in 1895. In 1896 he was made member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture in Turin and he also took a position at the Technical Institute of Bologna. He worked in Foggia (1899-1902), Udeine (1902-1903), L'Aquila (1905-1905), Genoa, and Bologna (1910-1912). In 1913 he became a curator at the Natural History Museum of Milan, collaborated with entomologists in Germany and was involved in arranging the

Gryllacrididae Gryllacrididae are a family of non-jumping insects in the suborder Ensifera occurring worldwide, known commonly as leaf-rolling crickets or raspy crickets. The family historically has been broadly defined to include what are presently several oth ...

at the Zoological Museum of Berlin. He donated his specimen collections, particularly of beetles to the natural history museum in Genoa. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he served in the 1st Engineer Regiment but was paralyzed in 1917 by an injury and he returned to teach in Bologna. He lived in Brescia from 1925 until his death. His collections were deposited at the museum of Turin. Among his books was a popular account of zebras. He married Marta Scialini (b. 1876) and they had a son and daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffini, Achille 1870 births 1932 deaths Italian zoologists People from Milan