The first time I bought some butterflies I was in Ujung Pandang (Makassar), Sulawesi Islands (Celebes). There I was approached by Jamal during a tour at the old dutch fortress of that city. When Jamal showed me his butterflies I was struck by their colours and shapes, especially by a very particular specimen, with deep blue upper wings and green lower wings. Not enough satisfied, I followed him to his place where he had many more. After long and exhausting negotiations I bought some specimen and the blu-green butterfly.

My fellow-travellers had different reactions: some were positively impressed by the beauty of the butterflies, others criticized me, saying that killing butterflies was the same as committing a murder. A dispute sparked off immediately and with the same rapidity it was put out as I asked if anyone knew where the silk comes out of. It is well known that it originates from the cocoons of specific butterflies, so that an innocuous foulard can turn into a massacre. This is how I saved my ethic sensibility since no one of them declared herself ready to give up to silk clothes.

Once back home I put my butterflies in a frame in order to make a fine show of them in my living room. For long time I was proud of the blu-green butterfly, it definetely standed out among the others. Till one day someone told me it was false. My good friend Jamal must have probably recycled two broken butterflies making another one out of them with the glue. Really smart. Then I began to go to specialized meetings where I had the occasion to meet people and I learned more about butterflies and insects. Since then each time I travelled I don't miss to buy insects to sell at the meetings. But exchanging my insects with those from other parts of the world where I haven't been to was the thing I preferred. This doesn't bring any profit but now I can say I have a good collection.

The simple hobby of collecting insects wasn't enough to satysfy my thirst for scientific knowledge, so I started researches on taxonomy, biology, ecology, pictures, etc. The computer proved to be a valid instrument to file all these data, and soon I discovered how difficult it is organising the knowledge. After many attempts my choice fell on the simplest organizing method, which is the one that brought also to the creation of the Life tree of this site: the traditional tree structure used in taxonomy. We can imagine this taxonomic structure as being formed by tree branches and all the different information sections as their leaves. The whole system appears as a big bush, whose branches we can move on to reach and read the leaves which arouse our interest. This explains also the choice of the name for this site: fracta in latin means "bush", so Fracta Naturae is the bush of nature.