Anastacio Cocco sometimes Anastasio (29 August 1799, Messina) - 26 February 1854, Messina) was an Italian naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

 who specialised in marine biology

Marine biology

Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...

.

Cocco was a pharmacist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

. He was especially interested in fish

Ichthyology

Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...

 and described several taxa from the Straits of Messina. In 1852 his friend the German scientist Eduard Rüppell

Eduard Rüppell

Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell was a German naturalist and explorer. Rüppell is occasionally transliterated to "Rueppell" for the English alphabet....

 named the fish Microichthys coccoi to honour his name. He was a friend and correspondent of many other naturalists notably Charles Lucien Bonaparte

Charles Lucien Bonaparte

Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano was a French naturalist and ornithologist.-Biography:...

, Antoine Risso

Antoine Risso

Giuseppe Antonio Risso , called Antoine Risso, was a Niçard naturalist.Risso was born in Nice, County of Nice, a part of the Duchy of Savoy, and studied under Giovanni Battista Balbis. He published , and . Risso's dolphin was named after him...

 and August David Krohn

August David Krohn

August David Krohn was a Saint Petersburg born zoologist of German origin. He was the son of Abraham Krohn, the founder of Russia's first brewery, who had left the island of Rügen to serve in the court of Catherine the Great. He was the uncle of the fennoman folklorist Julius Krohn...

.

Works

Partial list

• Cocco, A. 1829. Su di alcuni pesci de'mari di Messina. Giornale di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti per la Sicilia (Palermo) 7 26(77): 138–147 [146]. Contains the description of Argyropelecus hemigymnus Cocco, 1829 the Halfnaked Hatchetfish
  Marine hatchetfish
  Marine hatchetfishes or deep-sea hatchetfishes are small deep-sea mesopelagic ray-finned fish of the stomiiform subfamily Sternoptychinae...
  
  .
• Cocco, A. 1838. Su di alcuni Salmonidi del mare di Messina; lettera al Ch. D. Carle Luciano Bonaparte. Nuovi Annali delle Scienze Naturali. Bologna 1(2): 161–194 pls 5–8 [167, pl. 5(2)] Contains the description of Power's Deep-water Lightfish
  Vinciguerria poweriae
  Vinciguerria poweriae is a species of lightfish belonging to the genus Vinciguerria. They are mostly found in seawater deep during the day and deep at night. They feed on small crustaceans....
  
  (Cocco, 1838).
• with Rüppell, E. 1844. Intorno ad alcuni cefalopodi del mare di Messina: lettera del Dr. Eduardo Rüppell di Frankfort sul Meno al Prof. Anastasio Cocco. Giornale del Gabinetto Letteràrio di Messina, 5(27-28):129-135, 2 figures.