Airone was founded in 1981 as an ecologist magazine primarily containing articles about animal world, nature, ethnology and geography. The founder and first director was Egidio Gavazzi. with a peak of average circulation of about 250,000 copies per month. Between 1985 and 1986 it co-produced with
RAI the
nature documentary series
Pan. In 1989 it was launched a spin-off for the younger readers,
Airone Junior, renamed
Dodo in April 1995.
Airone was described as a "magazine similar to
National Geographic, but perhaps more conservation-minded", and it was referred to as "a stunning natural history magazine, the best of several European magazines". In an article about the first ten years of the magazine, the ''
L'Unità'' journalist Antonio Del Giudice pointed how the magazine was "not just an editorial phenomenon, but also a cultural, political e social phenomenon". In December 2013 the magazine had a circulation of 83,000 copies per month. ==See also==