Born: 19.10.1943 at Arma di Taggia (IM); graduated in Natural Sciences from Genoa Univeristy in 1966; Assistant Professor 1971; Associate Professor (Zoology, University of Genoa) since 22/10/1982; Full Professor of Zoology at the Uni­versity of Turin (22/02/1987-01/09/2013), Professor Emeritus since the latter date.

His entomological research focuses on the conservation, evolution, population genetics, ecology with particular emphasis on myrmecophily, of Papilionoidea.

President of Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica (1987-1998). President of the Italian Zoological Union (UZI: 2006-2010).Honorary member of the latter since 2019.

Member of Butterfly Conservation Europe, of the IUCN group for Mediterranean Lepidoptera and of the European committee for Papilionoidea.

Strongly promoted and was among the founder members of the Italian Federation of 18 Natural History Societies (FISNA: roughly 10,000 members), of which he was President from 01/01/2008 until 01/01/2010.

Was the Italian Delegate at the Standing Committee of Bern Convention (1984-1997), held the European Presidency during the 1996 Italian semester (Strasbourg, 22-26/01/1996), by appointment by the Ministry for the Environment and by the Ministry for Agricultural Policies.

Barbero F., Thomas J. A., Bonelli S., Balletto E., Schönrogge K., 2009. Queen ants make distinctive sounds that are mimicked by a butterfly social parasite. Science, 323: 782-785.

Balletto E., Barbero F., Casacci L. P., Chakira H., Dafiné A., Ouledi A., 2014. Les Papillons diurnes des Iles Comores. The Butterflies of the Comoros. 286 pp, 40 pls Pensoft, Sofia.

Balletto E., Cassulo L. A., Bonelli S., 2014. An annotated Checklist of the Italian Butterflies and Skippers (Papilionoidea, Hesperiioidea). Zootaxa, 3853 (1): 001–114.

Casacci L.P., Schönrogge K., Thomas J.A., Balletto E., Bonelli S. & Barbero F., 2019. Host specificity pattern and chemical deception in a social parasite of ants. Scientific Reports, 9:1619 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-38172-4.

Dapporto L., Cini A., Vodă R., Dincă V., Wiemers M., Menchetti M., Magini G., Talavera G., Shreeve T., Bonelli S., Casacci L.P., Balletto E., Scalercio S. & Vila R., 2019. Integrating three comprehensive data sets shows that mitochondrial DNA variation is linked to species traits and paleogeographic events in European butterflies. Molecular Ecology Resources, DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.13059.