Carlo Antonio Fornasini was an Italian plant collector who botanised in and around the Inhambane area in Mozambique from 1839 onwards. He sent his extensive collections to Professor Guiseppe Bertolini of Bologna, who drew and described many of the specimens in a series of publications entitled 'Illustrazione di Piante Mozambices' in the journal Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze dell Istituto di Bologna. Fornasini is generally credited with the discovery of Encephalartos ferox, which was described by Bertolini in 1851. He also collected spiders and other natural history specimens. Fornasini's Blind Snake (Typhlops fornasinii) and Fornasini's Spiny Reed Frog (Afrixalus fornasini) were named after him by Bianconi in 1847 and 1849 respectively.

List of sources:

Beolens, B., Watkins, M. & Grayson, M. The eponym dictionary of amphibians. Pelagic Publishing, 2013.

Beolens, B., Watkins, M. & Grayson, M. The eponym dictionary of reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

Encephalartos ferox. The Cycad Society of South Africa. http://cycadsociety.org/?page_id=1784 as on 28 November 2016.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2020-04-24 23:49:43