Haris Attila: Hymenoptera Research in the Carpathian Basin - Natura Somogyiensis 29. (Kaposvár, 2016)
History of the Aculeata research in the Romanian part of the Carpathian Basin from 1920
Haris, A.: Hymenoptera Research in the Carpathian Basin 135 Argaman removed labels from part of the specimens including types, leaving them without any label." We have other resource from him from the kindness of Dr. Bogdan Tomozei and professor lonel Andriescu: "Professor Andriescu was the director of Marine Biological Station of Agigea, until 1970. He said that in that time, Károly Nagy was a student at University of Cluj-Napoca and very interested in entomology, especially in Aculeata group. Professor dr. Ionel Andriescu allowed him to study Aculeata and investigate the sand dunes, where he found very interesting faunistic elements with many new records for Romania. After graduation, due to its special passion for Entomology, Prof. dr. Ionel Andriescu employed him at Marine Biological Station of Agigea (1967 or 1968). Before he left to Israel, he changed his name to Carol (Karol) Grossman and when arrived to Israel he changed his name again to Hebrew name: Quabir Argaman. He worked for the Plant Protection Department, Bet Dagan, Israel. It seems, he took the Aculeata collection with him to Israel. Probably his collection is still there." About his years in Israel, a short letter of him to the editors of Sphecos, provides valuable information: "7 am now working on the Catalog of Palaearctic Hymenoptera. I asked Dr. Gordon Gordh for cooperation on Bethylidae, Dr. Borge Peterson for the Scoliidae, and Dr. Kurzenko on Sapygidae. However many authors on the original list of Dr. Papp have not answered positively. During the summer, I searched so much for other Heterogyna unsuccessfully. Dr. M. Day has told me that only with the help of Malaise trap can they be collected, but I possess no such trap. However, I collected many specimens of Miscophus Jurine, some of them elegantly colored, like chrysidids, ampulicids, but without Andrade's work on the Mediterranean Miscophus, I can not identify them. During recent years visiting scientists were here such as Chris O'Toole, D. Brothers and G. Nonveiller, all studying Mutillidae. I have an incomplete collection of Israeli Mutillidae, as a few years of work here are insufficient to collect all of them. The problem is subsequently complicated by the fact there always exists the danger of being killed by a terrorist if one collecting mutillids "on four legs" is concentrating on a special biotope and is "out"from the environment. Thus must someone near him as is customary. Consequently, the regulations prescribe that a "high functioner of the Goverment" -1 am? - must carry a 37' magnum during field work. Do I pay it? Owing to the fact that our son David was born a year and a half ago and my daughter Naomi is seven years old, the last 2 years we have made no trips to the natural reserves, but collect only in city parks or gardens, so am I handicapped with the Mutillidae. In the Department there was no insect collection or library at all. I began a small one with about 5000 specimens now of identified Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera and Homoptera, all represented by one pair for subsequent comparison because I have no pins and boxes for a large collection yet, but I hope to get some boxes for them in the next year." The following species were named to his honor: Idiasta argamani Papp, 2012, Chelonus argamani Papp, 2012, Synaldis argamani Fischer, 1993 and Argamania aereus Papp, 1989. During his years in Romania, Károly Nagy described 8 Myrmillidae and Bethilidae species from the Carpathian Basin, see the list separately (Nagy 1968e, 1970). In his early works, he studied the scolitid wasps and velvet ants recording numerous species from Transylvania (Nagy 1965, 1966b, 1970d, Nagy and Stamp 1966). The other group, that he intensively studied was Bethylidae. In faunistic point of view, his following papers contain several valuable records: Nagy 1966a, 1967c, d, 1968a, b, c, f 1969, 1970a, b, c. In one paper, he investigated bethylid wasps in point of view of biological control: "Bethylidae (Hymenoptera) parasitizing orchard caterpillars" (Nagy 1976). Also, he summarized his studies and results on bethylid subgenus Mesitiinae (Argaman, 2003). In this work we may find high number Hungarian and smaller number Romanian (Transylvanian) faunistic data of various species.
