Guido Nonveiller
Encyclopedia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n entomologist, FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
expert and professor at the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...
. He fought in the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
and French Forces of the Interior
French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior refers to French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation of these groups to FFI occurred as France's status changed from that of an occupied nation...
during WW2. In 1989 he was inducted as a Commander of the l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He was known for his political and scientific activism and perhaps as the world authority for the African and Palaearctic Mutillidae
Mutillidae
Mutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasp whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals...
(velvet ants).
Life
His father Lino Nonveiller was a chemical engineer that travelled through Europe and educated Guido and his sister in Rijeka, ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Split
Split (city)
Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
. In 1927, he was introduced to Peter Novak
Peter Novak
Peter Aerts also known as Peter Novak , is one of Belgium's leading DJ's.- Biography :...
, an early Croatian entomologist, who made a lasting impact on the young boy and stimulated a life long passion for insects. At sixteen (1929) he discovered his first new insect species on Biokovo
Biokovo
Biokovo is the second-highest mountain range in Croatia, located along the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, between the rivers of Cetina and Neretva...
mountains. The same year it was named after him - Trechus nonveilleri by Giuseppe Miller from Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
.
In his early twenties, during probation work at the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...
, he engaged in different students movements that led him to fight in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and WW2. He was an officer in the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
from 1937 until he was captured after Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's victory in April 1939 and incarcerated in the prison of Castres. He escaped in 1942 with 36 other Brigadists and joined the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. After the war from 1944 to 1945, he was appointed at the Yugoslav Embassy in France
In 1945, he returned to the University of Belgrade, where he taught from 1946 to 1960. He founded and directed for ten years the Federal Institute for Plant Protection of Yugoslavia. He also held a head of the Plant Protection Services and the Yugoslav Federal Ministry from 1947 to 1949. From 1960 to 1962 he worked in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
as plant protection officer, and from 1962 to 1985 as United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...
expert in Yaounde, Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
.
In 1989 he was inducted as a Commander of the l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, the highest level of the academic honor given out by the French government. From 1992 to 1996, in his early eighties, he moved to Paris to work at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
and published over 20 papers on his work on Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
.
In 1996 the Spanish government recognized his endeavors to defend the Republic and declared him honorary citizen of Spain. The same year, Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
, then French President, granted him the legal status of former service personnel ("anciens combattants").
In 2006 the Croatian Entomological society named their bibiographical database Nonveilleriana in his memory
Work
Nonveiller was internationally renowned for researching the African and Palaearctic MutillidaeMutillidae
Mutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasp whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals...
and Bradynobaenidae (Hymenoptera), a leading specialist for several groups of Coleoptera of the Balkans and adjacent areas and a prominent expert in economic entomology and historigraphy of his time. During his 13-year long stay in Cameroon he was one of the first proponents of the Integrated pest management
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated pest management is an ecological approach to agricultural pest control that integrates pesticides/herbicides into a management system incorporating a range of practices for economic control of a pest...
.
In the late 1980, despite his age, Nonveiller was among the world pioneers in application of personal computers in entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
. He started with Commodore 64 in 1983.
Publications
Nonveiller wrote and published in German, French, English, Italian, Spanish and Serbo-Croatian, resulting in more than 150 publications, description of 33 new general/subgenera and over 330 new species-group taxa assembling one of the world largest collection of African MutillidaeMutillidae
Mutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasp whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals...
including more than 120,000 specimens collected by himself and his wife Nadezda in Cameroon.
External links
- At Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Pioneers-Research-Insects-Dalmatia/dp/9536645041/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208324487&sr=8-2
- Croatian entomological Database http://www.agr.hr/hed/hrv/bibl/osobe/osobeFR.htm
- At Googlebooks: http://books.google.com/books?id=3RoJUIunQ-UC&pg=PA827&lpg=PA827&dq=nonveiller&source=web&ots=H7uPAWLwQm&sig=VO8b7vkx-gncu9heouE5ZIkj4j4
- Family Mutillidae: http://www.zmuc.dk/EntoWeb/collections-databaser/Hymenoptera/Mutillidae%20first%20half%20of%20genera.htm
- Trechus nonveilleri: http://www.zipcodezoo.com/Animals/T/Trechus_nonveilleri.asp