Count Hercules Turati or Ercole Turati (1829 –1881,

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 ...

o) was a wealthy Milanese banker and naturalist. He purchased natural history specimens and built up a very large private collection of more than 20,000 bird specimens, mostly mounted, which include the now extinct

Great Auk The great auk (''Pinguinus impennis''), also known as the penguin or garefowl, is an Extinction, extinct species of flightless bird, flightless auk, alcid that first appeared around 400,000 years ago and Bird extinction, became extinct in the ...

. The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano was constructed to house the specimens that his heirs donated to the city after his death. A large number of specimens were however destroyed during an air raid in 1943. File:Aquila_Turati.jpg, Illustration of ''Aquila nipalensis'' and ''A. heliaca'' by Vittorio Turati printed using the Sincromio process File:Ercole Turati 1883.jpg, Portrait of Turati by Sebastiano De Albertis (1828–1897) Along with his brother Ernesto, he also made collections of the nests and eggs of the birds of Lombardy. Along with

Tommaso Salvadori Count Adelardo Tommaso Salvadori Paleotti (30 September 1835 – 9 October 1923) was an Italian zoologist and ornithologist. Biography Salvadori was born in Porto San Giorgio, son of Count Luigi Salvadori and Ethelyn Welby, who was English. His ...

, he described ''Pharomachrus xanthogaster'' in 1874 as the yellow-billed quetzal from Bogota which was considered later as a colour variant of ''

Pharomachrus auriceps The golden-headed quetzal or corequenque (''Pharomachrus auriceps'') is a strikingly coloured bird in the genus ''Pharomachrus''. It is found in moist mid-elevation forests from eastern Panama to northern Bolivia. The golden-headed quetzal is kn ...

'' but may represent a hybrid. After his death, his collection was transferred to the

Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano (Milan Natural History Museum) is a museum in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1838 when the naturalist Giuseppe de Cristoforis donated his collections to the city. Its first director was the taxono ...

which was constructed to house it. This collection was curated by Giacinto Martorelli and Edgardo Moltoni. Several species of birds are named after him including ''Picoides pubescens turati'' and '' Laniarius turatii''. A brother, Vittorio Turati was a pioneer photographer who developed a process of printing varying tints called Sincromia or Synchromie. Some prints made using this process were included in Martorelli's catalogue of Turati's raptor collections. His son Emilio Turati (1858 - 1938) was an entomological collector.

References

Italian ornithologists {{ornithologist-stub