Lorenzo Camerano was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 herpetologist

Herpetology

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles...

 and entomologist.

Born in Biella

Biella

Biella is a town and comune in the northern Italian region of Piemonte, the capital of the province of the same name, with some 45,800 inhabitants as of 2009. It is located about 80 km northeast of Turin and about 80 km west-northwest of Milan.It lies in the foothills of the Alps,...

 in 1856 he studied in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 and Torino, where he settled in order to take, between 1871 and 1873, a painting course held by Fontanesi at the local Art Academy.
Camerano worked as a painter for the Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 Zoology Museum, then directed by the great zoologist Michele Lessona

Michele Lessona

Michele Lessona was an Italian zoologist.Michele Lessona became a specialist in amphibians.His accomplishments include the translation of certain works Darwin for example The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.-Works:Partial list* Carlo Darwin...

.
Fascinated by the strong personality of Lessona, he started a natural sciences course at the local university and graduated in 1878.
After having held several positions as assistant he became professor in 1880 and attained a permanent tenure in Cagliari

Cagliari

Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...

 University.
A little later he went back to Turin where he was assigned the chair of comparative anatomy

Comparative anatomy

Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...

, that he held till 1915.
Camerano also was chancellor of the University of Turin between 1907 and 1910, and was elected an Italian senator in 1909.

Besides his large scientific production (more than 300 titles), he founded scientific journals and a marine biology institute in Rapallo

Rapallo

Rapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....

.
Camerano strongly defended Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

's ideas and was member of several national and international scientific institutions.