Rita Delia Schiapelli

Rita Delia Esther Schiapelli (November 20, 1906 – December 23, 1976) was an Argentine arachnologist.

Biography Rita D. E. Schiapelli was the daughter of Antonio Schiapelli (Italian) and Pía Sánchez (Argentine). She studied at the Instituto Superior del Profesorado “Joaquín V. González”, together with Berta Sofía Gerschman de Pikelin. Both were students of Irene Bernasconi, Argentina’s first specialist in Echinodermata, who worked at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. In 1928 they graduated together as secondary school teachers in natural sciences, and in 1929 they began working voluntarily in the museum’s entomology section. Using books and specimens from the Museo de La Plata, they classified and catalogued spiders provided by the head of the section. These spiders became the first specimens of the National Arachnology Collection of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales.

Publications She published 53 articles on arachnids of Argentina, including:

Schiapelli, R.D. & Gerschman de Pikelin, B.S. (1942). "Arañas argentinas (parte I)." Anales del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" 40: 317–332. Schiapelli, R.D. & Gerschman de Pikelin, B.S. (1945). "Parte descriptiva." In: Vellard, J., R.D. Schiapelli & B.S. Gerschman (eds.) Arañas sudamericanas colleccionadas por el Doctor J. Vellard. I. Theraphosidae nuevas o poco conocidas. Acta Zoologica Lilloana 3: 165–213. Schiapelli, R.D. & Gerschman de Pikelin, B.S. (1961). "Las especies del género Grammostola Simon 1892, en la República Argentina (Araneae, Theraphosidae)." Actas y Trabajos del Congreso Sudamericano de Zoologia, La Plata I (La Plata, 1959) 3: 199–208.