About me

Hi to all,

I'm Andrea Mangoni, an italian biologist that live in Camponogara, a little city between Padua and Venice in the Veneto region. From many years I'm seriously involved in studying local biodiversity and wildlife, rare and ancient italian poultry breeds, captive care and breeding of insects and others invertebrates, and much more.

Some years ago I've starded my internet adventure with a website, Oryctes.com, even if now I've almost not more time to update them; after many years, it's however a reference website for any italian beetle breeder (I've also wrote a book about scarabaeidae and lucanidae care and breeding). But in the last years I'm more involved in studying local poultry biodiversity and wildlife. I'm actively working on some project to save from extinction some very ancient breeds or flock of italian fowl breed: the more ancient know flock of Polverara breed, and the now considered extinct Boffa hen breed, that I've miracolously find in a little farm near Perugia, jealously kept by an old farmer for more than 50 years!

I'm also very interested in heritage fruits and vegetables, and I'm studying the local wildlife of my region, mainly amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, wildflowers that live near (or in) ponds and ditches. I'm a great passion for nature photography, and I've organized some photograpic exposition, and courses in botany. Other projects I'm involved, are some books about polutry keeping, natural gardening, historical researches about Polverara hen, etc...

This blog would be an english version of my italian blog Oryctesblog; I hope you could forgive me my bad english. I hope to reach my goal: instilling in you a curiosity for italian biodiversity. If you want contact me, please e-mail me at info@oryctes.com. Ciao!