Species Aerva ruspolii

For Prince Eugenio Ruspoli (1866–1893), Italian explorer, ethnologist, naturalist, botanical and zoological collector, hunter, and son of the mayor of Rome. He authored In the Land of Unexplored Africa and Mirra, in Italian in 1892. He was sent by the Italian government to Ethiopia (1891–1893) as it wished to secure the country’s colonial pretensions that Ethiopia would become a protectorate. In 1893, while leading an expedition to the Amara mountains in southwestern Ethiopia, a large elephant appeared at the foot of these mountains in an open plain. Ruspoli walked out to try to shoot the animal, which suddenly charged him and trampled him to death. He was 28.