B. Gál Edit – Veres Gábor szerk.: Agria 47. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2011)

Kecskeméti Tibor: „A csigák ura” - A 60 éves Fűköh Levente köszöntése

Tibor Kecskeméti "The Lord of the Snails" Birthday greeting to the 60-year-old Levente Fűköh What makes a young graduate biologist to deal with snails? An outstanding high school biology teacher? Or the university tutors? Or perhaps the desire to join the famous Hungarian malacology school? As it turned out from media statements, they collectively influenced the choice of research topics. As a professional supervisor mentor, and then later as a friend, I know the jubilarian's career well. This remarkable career began in the late 1970s in Eger at the István Dobó Castle Museum. The paleontological collection of Eger that had had experienced many hardships, was moved to Gyöngyös in 1987, and become one of the largest and most valuable element of the Mátra Museum. Levente Fűköh moved together with the collection to Gyöngyös as director. Over time, it becomes unavoidable to transfer the accumulated knowledge and experience. He was invited to the Esterházy Károly Teachers' Training College of Eger and the University of Debrecen as a lecturer. His lecture notes were published under the title of Introduction to the Paleontology and Paleoecology (2002). The title of one of the appendices of the book is The Holocene Mollusca Fauna Phylogeny in the Last Ten Thousand Years, in which the main issues of his PhD thesis are presented. After all, in the habilitation procedure, he deservedly gets the title of Professor. It should be emphasized: Levente Fűköh's not minor achievements in the past 10 years, have been realized in a time when the Mátra museum has experienced the most profound changes of its existence. The museum staff had to experience a multi-stage building reconstruction, construction works of a new exhibition pavilion, and a nature park renovation. This period was certainly not too fortunate to Levente Fűköh to research (I have heard several times during my professional supervision visits that he did not have time to sit at the microscope), but at least with reading scientific papers tried to keep pace with the development of his field. I finish by quoting Dante. He writes in one of the chapters of The Divine Comedy, his eternally beautiful work, "In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood...". Levente, you are in the middle of the journey of your life. The other half is still to come. Take advantage of it for the benefit of science and museology! 19