Luigi Maria D'Albertis | |
|---|---|
 Luigi Maria D'Albertis | |
| Born | 21 November 1841 |
| Died | 2 September 1901 (aged 59) |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology |
Luigi Maria D'Albertis (21 November 1841 – 2 September 1901) was an Italian naturalist and explorer who, in 1875, became the first Italian to chart the Fly River in what is now called Papua New Guinea. He undertook three voyages up this river from 1875 to 1877. The first was conducted in the steamer SS Ellengowan and the other two in a smaller ship named the "Neva" which was chartered from the Government of New South Wales. Throughout the three voyages, D'Albertis was consistently involved in skirmishes with the various indigenous people living along the river, using rifle-fire, rockets and dynamite to intimidate and, on occasions, kill these local people. He also frequently employed destructive dynamite fishing as a technique of obtaining aquatic specimens for his collection. His expedition stole many ancestral remains, tools and weapons from the houses of the locals. He also collected specimens of birds, plants, insects and the heads of recently killed native people. Contemporary explorers and colonial administrators of d'Albertis were almost universally critical of the methods employed by D'Albertis in his expeditions up the Fly and more modern accounts, such as Goode's "Rape of the Fly" are equally condemnatory.