Ladislav Roller - Attila Haris - Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Sawflies of the Carpathian Basin, History and Current Research - Natura Somogyiensis 11. (Kaposvár, 2008)
History of the Symphyta research in the Carpathian Basin
Tenthredo and Sirex. Sirex gigás (Uroceros gigas L.) and Sirex pygmaeus (Cephus pygmaeus L.) recorded firstly in the Carpathian Basin by Grossinger. This monograph was the first academic-level zoological and dendrplogical textbook written in Latin and completed with Hungarian and German names and also a significant resource for old Hungarian zoological names (old meaning from before the neology of the Hungarian Language in the reform era in the early 19th century). In this book, the Hungarian "íevéldarázs" word (literally: leaf-wasp) was mentioned for the first time. This is the name we are still using, although 7 years later, János Földi (FÖLDI 1801) proposed the name "Virágbogár" (Flowerbug) or optionally the hungarised Latin "Tentréd" for Tenthredinidae that were not generally accepted. For Siricid wasps (woodwasps), he proposed the name of "fadarázs" (or "fadarás" in old Hungarian spelling, literally woodwasp) that we are still using instead of the old-fashioned "fűrészbogár" (literally: sawbug) proposed by Földi. In the last decades of the 18 th century, Tóbiás Koy (1757 Wien - 1829 Buda, officer of the Hungarian Royal Financial Chamber) took regular collecting trips in the hills of Buda (now Budapest, in that time, the 2 cities: Buda and Pest existed separately). In 1800, he published the checklist of his collected species titled: Alphabetisches Verzeichniss meiner Insectensammlung (KOY 1800). In this small, 65 pages booklet, he listed 37 (actually 36) Symphyta species. This is the earliest Hungarian sawfly checklist. The following Symphyta species were listed: Sirex gigas = Urocerus gigas (Linnaeus, 1758), Tenthredo abietis •= Cephalcia abietis (Linnaeus, 1758) (?), T. albicincta = Macrophya albicincta (Schrank, 1781), T. albicornis = Tenthredo crassa (Scopoli, 1763), T. atra = Tenthredo atra Linnaeus, 1758, T. blanda = Macrophya blanFig. 3: Internal cover of Grossinger: Universa História Physica 4
