The Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (www.szn.it) is a Public Research Institution, among the most influential research Institutions in the field of marine biology and ecology.

It was founded in 1872 by Anton Dohrn. Dohrn was a fervent defender of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and he decided to devote his life to collecting facts and ideas in support of Darwinism, the starting point of a lifelong adventure. His project was to cover the globe with a network of stations of biological research, similar to train stations, where scientists could stop, collect material, realize observations and experiments, before moving to the next station. Dohrn decided that Naples would be the ideal place for his station. He also thought that a public aquarium could earn enough to pay for a permanent assistant for the laboratories. The public aquarium, which covers an area of 527 square metres, was opened on Jan. 26th 1874 and it remains unique because it has changed very little since its creation, and it is the oldest aquarius in the nineteenth century which is still working and is exclusively dedicated to the fauna and flora of the Mediterranean.