Megafauna in Italy

By Richard A. Fariña, Ángeles Beri, Luciano Varela, Sebastián Tambusso, Martín Batallés

Departamento de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias y Servicio Académico Universitario y Centro de Estudios Paleontológicos

Renowned for its cuisine and art, Italy is also home to fossil collections that delight both palaeontologists and the general public. Centuries before the establishment of the modern Italian state, possibly its most famous son addressed the phenomenon of marine fossils found atop mountains in his Codex Leicester (Fig. 1). He argued against the prevailing belief of his time that these fossils were the result of the Biblical Flood, arguing instead that they were the remains of marine organisms embedded in sediments when those regions were once under the sea, later uplifted by geological processes (da Vinci, ca. 1508-1510).

“Shells and marine remains are found atop mountains, which some attribute to the waters of the Flood. But if the Flood had carried these sea creatures to the summits, how is it that these fossils remain in orderly layers and aligned as though undisturbed? Furthermore, the shells are whole and delicate, not broken or mixed with the remains of other creatures, as would be expected if they had been violently swept away. It is evident that these lands were once the seabed and, over time, were raised through the movements of the Earth.”

Fig. 1. Cover of the Codex Leicester, considered the most expensive existing book. The original is currently owned by Bill Gates.
 

Some of the beautiful Italian cities, known for their museums, architecture and astonishing historical remains, also house the fossil bones of the South American megafauna.

Turin

Turin, the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy after the Risorgimento, received its share of the South American megafauna with at least one representative in its Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali: a glyptodont. That specimen (Fig. 2) is of great historical significance in the identification of this animal, as deliciously narrated by Podgorny in “La silla y el gliptodonte: dos historias genovesas (con una pizca napolitana)” and in the SciCoMove Digital exhibition post “A Glyptodon in Turin: The Argentinian Giant”.

Fig. 2. The armour and other skeletal pieces of a glyptodont collected in the Río Matanza, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, and the information shown in the exhibition of the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali of Turin.

Milan

The beautiful building of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale once kept one of the largest among the South American megafauna collections in Europe. Very unfortunately, on the night of the 7th to the 8th of August of 1943, an Allied air raid targeted the city. Two hundred tons of bombs, primarily incendiaries, were dropped on the city, which resulted in extensive fires that caused countless casualties and destroyed numerous buildings, notably including the Natural History Museum. ​

The destruction of the Natural History Museum was complete, with approximately 50% of its exhibits lost due to the bombings. Although the museum was subsequently rebuilt in 1952, the South American collection is now composed only by a few bones, some of which show the charred scars from human conflicts long after their time (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Fragment of a lower jaw of Megatherium americanum from Argentina kept in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan. Extinct as a biological species at the end of the Pleistocene, this specimen survived as a fossil through the long process of death, transport, burial, etc., as well as a bombardment during the WWII. Photo courtesy of Fabio Mongiovi.
 

Bologna

With its breathtaking tall (and leaning) Medieval towers and one of the first universities, if not the first, where many generations of privileged students attended the lectures of the great Umberto Eco, the capital of Emilia-Romagna also had a most prominent naturalist, Giovanni Capellini (1833-1922), who was also an active protagonist of the society of his time (Fanti 2010).

It was in his correspondence with Capellini that the great Argentinian palaeontologist Florentino Ameghino gave us the evidence of his birthplace (Fig. 3): the town of Moneglia, not far from Genoa (Vanni et al. XXXX; see also Boscaini et al. 2021; Podgorny 2021a,b). Ameghino was interested in visiting Italy without facing the risk of being forced to waste one year in the military.

Fig. 4. Thus, the importance of Bologna, its Museo Geologico Giovanni Capellini and the eponymous prominent 19th century palaeontologist resides in the fact that, because of that correspondence and the likely favour Ameghino obtained from Capellini in regard to enrolment (as well as other instances of purchase, donations and the like; Fanti 2010; Podgorny 2021b), the geological museum that bears the name of the great Italian naturalist shows a beautiful collection of fossils of the South American mammalian giants, including an individual tributed to him (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Mounted skeleton of Scelidotherium capellini, exhibited at the Museo Giovani Capellini.

Florence

In classical mythology and biblical tradition, certain giants are culprits of rebellion against divinity. Tuscany seems to have been swarming with sinful giants, at least judging by the skeletons in the Museo di Geologia e Paleontologia in the refined city of Florence. Many gigantic skeletons of proboscideans have been recovered from a not so large territory, which are nowadays immodestly displaying their big size in the exhibition room, inspiring the awe of the visitors. If that wasn’t enough, evil giants from other parts of the world and those from South America are no exceptions (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Section of the Museo di Geologia e Paleontologia, Florence, dedicated to showing the peculiarities of South American megafauna. A Megatherium is spotted showing all its impressive size.

Epilogue

This is the contribution from our final secondment of the SciCoMove project. The fossil treasures of the animals that went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene housed in the European museums we visited added to our current knowledge and inspire us to continue unveiling their secrets.

On our visit to Florence, our colleague Stefano Dominici (thanks for sharing this!)

reminded us of a marvellous and very pertinent reference in the Divina Commedia. In the Canto XII, verses 58-60 of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil descend into the seventh circle of Hell, where violence is punished. Virgil mentions that “God uprooted [extinguished]” giants, as an act of divine justice:

Ma perché tu veggi ben quel che ‘l vero,
pensai che tu vedessi, com’io vidi,
che alcuni giganti Dio ancor svelse
.

(But so that you may clearly see the truth,
I thought you would see, as I saw,
that God still uprooted some giants.)

Now, the megafauna giants are extinct and we no longer consider them as wicked or attribute their demise to supernatural causes. On the contrary, there’s strong evidence that those causes might have been totally or partially human-related. In any case, ancient collections that crossed the ocean help us to understand today their ways of life and death.

References

Alighieri D. 1982. The Divine Comedy: Inferno (A. Mandelbaum, Trans.). Bantam Books. (Original work published in 1320).

Boscaini A, Peralta Gavensky N, de Iuliis G, Vizcaíno SF. 2021. The origin of “El hombre en el Plata”: on the birthdate and birthplace of Florentino Ameghino (1853–1911). Publicación Electrónica de la Asociación Paleontológica Argentina 21: 28–43.

Fanti F. 2010. Life and ideas of Giovanni Capellini (1833–1922): a palaeontological revolution in Italy. Geological Society, London, Special Publications 343: 79-87.

Leonardo da Vinci. Circa 1508–1510. Codex Leicester.

Podgorny I. 2023. La silla y el gliptodonte: dos historias genovesas (con una pizca napolitana). Hilario Books 33. https://www.hilariobooks.com/blog-article.php?slug_es=la-silla-y-el-gliptodonte-dos-historias-genovesas-con-una-pizca-napolitana&lang=es).

Podgorny I. 2021a. Los argentinos vienen de los peces: Ensayo de filogenia nacional. Beatriz Viterbo, Buenos Aires.

Podgorny I. 2021b. Florentino Ameghino y hermanos. Edhasa, Buenos Aires.

Podgorny I. 2025. A Glyptodon in Turin: The Argentinian Giant. https://scicomoveshowcase.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/an-glyptodon-in-turin/

Vanni, V, Fanti F, Belcastro MG. 2018. The South American mammal collection at the Museo Geologico Giovanni Capellini (Bologna, Italy). Colligo 3 Hors-série 2, 1-10.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
alexiacomte (April 9, 2025). Megafauna in Italy. SciCoMove — Scientific Collections on the Move. Retrieved May 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13pwl


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