Entomologia Carniolica

Entomologia Carniolica exhibens insecta Carnioliae indigena et distributa in ordines, genera, species, varietates is a taxonomic work by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, published in Vienna in 1763. As well as describing hundreds of new species, Entomologia Carniolica contained observations on the species' biology, including the first published account of queen bees mating outside the hive.

In contrast to his predecessors Carl Linnaeus and Johan Christian Fabricius, who had used the structure of the insect wing and the structure of the insect mouthparts, respectively, as the main means of classifying arthropods, Scopoli favoured a more holistic approach.

In Entomologia Carniolica, Scopoli described 1153 species of "insects" (a term which at that time included many arthropods), divided into seven orders:

The animals described in Entomologia Carniolica were found in the Duchy of Carniola (also called the Krain), an area at that time under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nowadays, it is the western part of Slovenia.

For each species, Scopoli gave references to previously published illustrations and binomial names. Few works using binomial nomenclature had appeared by 1763; those cited by Scopoli include the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758) and Fauna Suecica (1761) by Carl Linnaeus, and Insecta Musei Graecensis (1761) by Nikolaus Poda von Neuhaus. More than half of the species listed by Scopoli in Entomologia Carniolica were described as new. They include:

...
Wikipedia