Haris Attila: Hymenoptera Research in the Carpathian Basin - Natura Somogyiensis 29. (Kaposvár, 2016)
Early History of the Aculeata research in Hungary from the 16th till the 19th century (1560–1800)
70 Natura Somogyiensis from Trencsén, Hajós, Szomotor, Pest and Kalocsa (Schulz 1903). In the time of this publication, he lived in Strassburg. Gábor Bakó (22nd December 1871 Pest -23rd May 1948 Szekszárd ) Director of State Entomological Research Station (after it's reorganization named: Plant Protection Research Institute). He specialized for insect pests of grape and com. In 1903, Bakó published a short paper on the importance of the preventive control of wasps (Bakó 1903). József Kiss and Károly Olasz studied the insect fauna of Árva Polhora and Babiurga (Oravská Polhora and Babia Hora Mt., now in Slovakia) recording 16 Aculeata species namely Polistes, Bombus, Psythirus and Halictus spp. (Kiss and Olasz 1907). We don't know much about their life, based on their paper, they were very likely teachers of the Paedagogicum in Budapest. Bertalan Schin studied the insect fauna of Huszt and its environment publishing 103 Aculeata species: 12 Chrysididae, 5 Typhidae, 1 Sapygidae, 5 Pompilidae, 20 Sphecoidea, 8 Vespoidea and 52 Apoidea species (Schin 1909). Schin (like Móczár and Henter) was student of Jenő Vángel at the Pedagogicum in Budapest (discussed earlier). In the summer holiday of the 1907 school year, he collected the published Diptera and Hymenoptera species. The identification was completed partly by the author and partly by Sándor Mocsáry (curator of Hymenoptera at the entomological collection of the Hungarian National Museum). His biography is unknown, we have source, that he graduated at Budapest Pedagogicum and received teacher degree for elementary schools in mathematics and natural history in 1908. Zoltán Szilády (21st May 1878 Budapest - 15th April 1947 Grosspösna, Diptera specialist, science historian). Szilády graduated at Budapest University of Sciences and received his teacher degree, started his career at Budapest but after 1 year he moved to teach to Nagyenyed (now Aiud) at Bethlen College between 1902 and 1920. Zoltán Szilády moved back to Budapest and became first curator and later honorary director of the Hungarian Natural History Museum between 1921 and 1934, in this time he was also lecturer of the Debrecen University. From 1934, he worked for the Zoological Station in Napoli (South Italy). Szilády in his paper titled "Magyarországi rovargyűjtésem jegyzéke" (List of insect of my collection trip in Hungary) listed high number of Aculeata species mainly from Transylvania. Voucher specimens were deposited partly at Kolozsvár University, partly at the museum of Bethlen College in Nagyenyed (Szilády 1914). He wrote a separate paper on the fauna of Retyezát Mts. including Aculeata (Szilády 1918a). He also described Argyramoeba anthrax Schrk (= sinuata) paraziting Megachile melanopyga Cock. (Szilády 1918b). Elek Benczúr (1875 Kassa - 1923 Budapest, graphic, insect illustrator, entomologist, plant-protection specialist). After graduating at the agricultural secondary school in Kassa, he studied parallel in 2 colleges: at Agricultural Academy in Mosonmagyaróvár and at Veterinary College in Budapest. At first, he got job at Agricultural Academy in Mosonmagyaróvár, than from 1904, he worked for the Budapest Entomological Station (predecessor of Plant Pro taction Research Institute). Later, he became director of the institute. This was the time, he published an interesting observation of professor Liistner. He compared the stomach contents of imagoes and larvae of Vespula vulgaris. In the stomaches of imagoes there were exclusively sugar solutions (from fuits) but in the stomaches of larvae, Liistner found only parts of insects (Benczúr 1917).
