The strain was isolated in 1941 from a patient in Italy by Mino (1942), who indicated its serological relationship with type "Australis B", but no names were mentioned. The strain was submitted to factor analysis by Kmety (1960) and found to represent a separate serovar. The serovar name lora was proposed. It appeared already in the list of 1965 (WHO, 1965) under provisional status. In the list of 1967 (WHO, 1967) it is quoted as a recognized serovar. In Dikken and Kmety's publication (1978) it is placed in the subgroup Australis.