Denis Keith

Denis shares his professional life as a German teacher and a collection manager in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Chartres (France). He has studied scarabs for over ten years and is interested in the Palearctic and Oriental Regions. His current research emphasizes taxonomy, faunistics, and ecology of the Hybosoridae, Glaphyridae, Melolonthidae and Rutelidae. He has conducted many collecting trips to Greece and Turkey. Download publication list.

Marco Uliana

Marco was born not far from Padua in 1980.He is currently a PhD student at the University of Padua and works as entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Venice.He is interested in regional ecology, faunistics and conservation of insects, mainly working on Coleoptera and Lepidoptera but having interest also towards allochtonous species of different orders and on halophilous fauna.In recent years he has been working also on geophilomorph Chilopoda, mainly dealing with taxonomy of asiatic Mecistocephalidae and cohoperating to the development of ChiloBase web catalogue. His current PhD research is on evolution of colour pattern in Coleoptera, with focus on Chrysolina and allied genera (Chrysomelidae). As for scarabs, he is interested in taxonomy, biogeography and ecology of western palearctic non-coprophagous scarabs; his current research is focused on Old World Glaphyridae, and is working towards a comprehensive revision of the species occurrying in the Middle-East. He also has a special interested in ecology and life-history of palearctic cetonids. He is fond of old science-fiction literature and likes devoting spare time to travelling, trekking, breeding insects, carnivorous plants and other unusual creatures. He is also a wildlife photographer, mainly devoted to macrophotography. He published over 40 papers, both scientific and popular. Download publication list.

Pierre-Hubert Tauzin

Pierre-Hubert, born in 1946 and Docteur en Sciences de la Terre (University of Bordeaux I), is a French Geostatistical engineer at the Centre de Geomorphologie Mathemathique de Fontainebleau and is working for the nuclear group AREVA. He is a specialist of the taxonomy and eco-ethology of Palearctic Cetoniinaae since more than 25 years. He studies also other Laparo-scarabs and Pleuro-scarabs, Buprestidae and Cerambycidae. He has published various papers on Geology and Geostatistics and 48 notes on Insects, particularly on Cetoniinae. Download publication list.

Giovanni Dellacasa

Giovanni was born in 1936 in Genoa, Italy, where he spent most of his life and still lives after retirement in 1995 from a position as bank manager. He began his entomological studies in 1950 and soon decided to concentrate on Scarabaeoidea with special emphasis on Aphodiidae. His present interests include the taxonomy of Palearctic Aphodiinae. He has been member of the Societa Entomologica Italiana since 1963 and in 1986 became administrator of it. He is also Honorary Curator at the "Museo di Storia naturale e del Territorio" of Pisa University. Access publication list.

Marco Dellacasa

Marco was born in Genoa, Italy in 1968. He has been involved in the study of scarabs since his childhood, and in 1987 won the award "Giovanni Binaghi" of the Societa Entomologica Italiana with his paper entitled, "Contribution to a world-wide Catalogue of Aegialiidae, Aphodiidae, Aulonocnemidae, Termitotrogidae. (Part I)" (see list). In 1995 he obtained a degree in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Pisa with a graduation thesis about dung beetles and the managment of pastures in the San Rossore Natural Park (Pisa). In 1998 he was appointed Curator of Entomology at the "Museo di Storia Naturale e del Territorio" of Pisa University in Calci (Pisa). He has conducted field research in various parts of the world: Corsica, Greece, Turkey, Oman, and Mexico. His current research includes the systematics of Aphodiinae, particularly the fauna of the Mexican Transition Zone and also South America. Access publication list.

Stefano Ziani

Stefano was born not far from Verona, Northern Italy in 1959. He is a teacher of physical education and he devotes his spare time to scarabs and guitar playing and, of course, to his beloved wife Roberta. He has been studying the "Laparostict" Scarabaeoidea for many years and in 1995 completed a catalogue of the dung beetle fauna of his region (Romagna, Italy), which won the "Zangheri Prize" as outstanding paper about the local natural history. He has recently focused on the dung beetle fauna of Middle East, where he has traveled to most of the countries in the area (Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and Egypt) and collected new data on the dung beetle fauna occurring there. Presently he is involved in taxonomic research about poorly known Middle-Eastern Aphodiini and Onthophagini, especially those living in mammals' nests, as well as in solving some related nomenclatural problems Access publication list.

Dirk Ahrens

Dirk' research interests are evolution, phylogeny, and biogeography of melolonthine scarab beetles as well as faunistics and ecological problems of Scarabaeoidea. He is currently working on the taxonomy and systematics of Asian and South African Sericinae, with special emphasis on the Indian and Indochinese subregion. Access publication list.

Oz Rittner

Oz was born in Israel on 25/3/75. He is working at Natural History Museum of Tel Aviv. He is also engaged in lecturing to group of interest and Macro Photography of insects. He has good experience in collecting insects in Israel and Argentina (his wife Ludmille is from there) expecially Butterflies. Recently he become more and more interested in Scarabaeoidea with focus on Glaphyridae for which is planning a faunistic revision of Israel species and he is contributing to different studies to clarify systematic problems in Scarabaeidae of Israel. Among his other intrests he loves cultivating Bromeliaceae.

Geoffrey Miessen

Geoffrey was born in Malmedy, eastern Belgium, in 1973. He prepared his first insect in 1983. During 9 years he was a generalist in entomology with a preference to study and collect insects from eastern Belgium, the less accessible and studied part of this country. In 1992, he decides to study only Scarabaeoidea from Palaearctic Region (except south eastern part). He is graduate in Agricultural Sciences and now State Agent in Belgium, mostly controlling the incoming plant quarantine pests from foreign countries. Secretary of the Royal Belgian entomological Society from 2001 to 2008, collaborating scientist of the Royal Belgian Institute for natural Sciences since 1996 and of the Faculty of agronomical Sciences of Gembloux University since 1999, he spends his vacations in North Africa and Near East with friends to collect scarabs.

Avi Schmida

Avi was born in Tel-Aviv in 1946, grew up in Haifa and finished school in 1964. Before army service, Avi was interested mainly in animals, especially in insects and marine invertebrates (his father was a fisherman), but during the army service, he became interested in plants systematic (Zhoary's book squeezed to his army's pouch), in order to escape from the pressure of the army ". Avi studied biology in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between 1967 and 1976 and in 1997 he went overseas to Cornell University as a Postdoc. Under the Supervisor of R.H. Whittaker he studied the Diversity of plant species over the Mediterranean and the Deserts around the globe especially in California and with the other teachers at Cornell he was exposed to the "New science of Ecology and Evolution". Since 1979, he has been working in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the Department of "Evolution Systematic and Ecology". He is a member of the "Center for Rationality" of the Hebrew University where he interacts with scientists from game-theory. Since its establishment in 1991, he has been organizing the Centers' retreat each year which comprises half of the time of lectures and half of the time nature hikes. Since the peace treaty, he has been working in South Jordan on a diversity of subjects related to the flora, the environment, the archeology, and the Bedouin culture. He has been working on ecological and evolutionary aspects of the flora of the Levant especially - pollination, species diversity and sexual allocation in plants and animals. He has recently focused on sex types in plants, studies in "Signaling game" of flagged Salvia, and the pollination of the "Red Anemone Guild" by Glaphyrid beetles. Presently, he is involved in ecological research on sexual allocation and mate choice in plants and beetles, as well as, in writing the second volume of "the Red-Data Book of the Israeli plants". He has specific interest on glafiridae and their coevolution with red Ranucolacee and Papaveracee. Avi has written 153 international scientific publications among them a very interesting paper on phenology of glaphyridae in Israel. He published also 9 books on the taxonomy, biology and the ecology of the Israeli flora, among others - The Nature of Mt. Hermon, The Canyons of Moab and Edom, and four field guides of the wild plants of Israel. Download publication list.

Tamar Keasar

Tamar is an entomologist interested in plant-pollinator and parasitoid-host interactions. She is a senior lecturer at the Department of biology, University of Haifa, Oranim. She lives with her husband and three children in Lehavim (Israel). A recent research project on the pollination ecology of Anemone coronaria has roused her interest in Glaphyrids, which are important pollinators of anemones in Israel. The project is exploring the mating and foraging behavior of the beetles while visiting flowers. Download publication list.

Antonio Rey

Antonio was born and lives in Genoa, Italy, where he works in the staff management of a public corporation. In 1992 he obtained a degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Genoa. His dissertation dealt with a faunistic analysis and biogeography of pleurostic Scarabaeoidea in Liguria, Italy. His principal interests are taxonomy and biogeography of Scarabaeoidea Pleurosticti from the Palearctic Region, principally in the West Mediterranean area. Besides this he is actually involved, together with other italian collegues, in the preparation of a DVD on italian scarabs, with photos of all species, interactive keys for identification, bibliography, etc. He is also the librarian of the Societa Entomologica Italiana. Download publication list.

Gianfranco Sama

Gianfranco was born in Cesena in 1944. He became interested in entomology while very young, collecting Scarabaeidae, Cerambycidae and Carabidae. In 1973 he met the Austrian entomologist Peter Schurmann, who became his master and who shared with him his whole experience of the research and rearing of immature stages of Cerambycidae. Since the he is carrying on surveys on phytophagous beetles (expecially Cerambycidae and Buprestidae) from the Mediterranean area. After a first trip to Turkey (1974) and several expedition to southern Italy, Spain and Balcan Peninsula, often together with Schurmann, in 1980 he organized the first trip to Algeria.and After this unbelievable proficuous experience he organized several expeditions to North Africa and the Near East, collecting Cerambycidae in the Maghreb and in all countries of Eastern Mediterranean : Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel). During the last years he became to investigate the bionomics of immature stages of Coleoptera Cerambycidae and Buprestidae of arid and semiarid ecoregions with particular attention to the biotopes with populations of different species of Acacia and associated trees and bushes, expecially in southern Egypt, southern Morocco and the Western Sahara. In 2001 he began the collaboration with Iranian Institutions and organized or participated to 6 entomological expeditions covering the whole country except the South-Easternmost province. All material collected during these trips have been published in about 130 scientific magazines or books, dealing with taxonomy, systematics and faunistic mostly of Cerambycidae, but also Carabidae and Buprestidae and including the description of about 150 new taxa covering Palaearctic, African and Nearctic zooregions. The Cerambycidae are also being illustrated in a Monograph dealing with the Fauna of Europe and the Mediterranean area (including Caucasus and Iran).He is currently engaged with the publication of two volumes dealing with North Africa and the Atlantic Islands. Download publication list.

Andre Kairouz

Andre was born in Tripoli Lebanon on 1954. He got his associated degree in electronic sciences in London England. In 1975 he started collecting butterflies. In 1980, while he was working in Saudi Arabia, one early evening, a huge dung beetle came flying and hit the windows of his living room producing a rather loud sound, Andre stepped out on the balcony to find the source of the sound and finding the beetle on its back he became immediately hooked by its beauty. Andre is now collecting all families of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. He considers himself as an amateurm however he discovered several new species for Lebanon and for the science like the Buprestidae Scintillatryx kairouzi that was named after him. Curently he works a professional photographer and he organizes eco-tourism and entomolgical research trips in northern Lebanon.