Enrico Alleva, ethologist, is the director of the department of behavioural Neuroscience at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and teaches Ethology at the University La Sapienza of Rome. He was the director of Società Italiana odi Etologia and Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples. He was scholar of Giuseppe Montalenti and Floriano Papi and partner of Rita Levi Montalcini, and he was member of the scientific board of ANPA, WWF, Legambiente, SZN and Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani. His field is behavioural genetics of mammals and the biological role of the “nerve growth factor” in stress. He received the Premio Grassi by Accademia dei Lincei and the Medaglia Anokin by Russian Academy of Medical Science. He has written a lot of articles for important newspapers and he wrote Il Tacchino termostatico. Un etologo e i suoi animali (Costa & Nolan, 1996), Consigli a un giovane etologo (with N. Tiliacos, Franco Muzzio, 2003), La mente animale (Einaudi, 2007).