Haris Attila: Hymenoptera Research in the Carpathian Basin - Natura Somogyiensis 29. (Kaposvár, 2016)
History of the Aculeata research in Hungary from 1920
Haris, A.: Hymenoptera Research in the Carpathian Basin 83 Erzsébet Baj ári (Erzsébet Nagy after her marriage, 12th August 1912 Újverbász - 25th October 1963 Budapest) curator of the Hymenoptera collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum till her early death. She graduated in Budapest as chemistry and natural history teacher. During the world economy crisis she was tutor, educating children at home of families. Later she got job at Budapest Analytical Institute (Vegyvizsgáló Intézet) and later at Central Statistics Office of the government. After her short employment by the Ministry of Religion and Education, from 1948, she worked for the Hungarian Natural History Museum where few years later, she became curator of the hymenoptera collection. She defended her doctoral thesis at Szeged University of Sciences. Erzsébet Bajári wrote 2 books in the series Fauna Hungáriáé, namely Scolioidea and Sphecoidea I. (Bajári 1956a, 1957a). She completed 3 monographs on Mutillidae fauna of the Carpathian Basin (Bajári 1952, 1953, Bajári and Móczár 1954). Bajári described Cerceris beaumonti Bajári, 1956 from Hungary which proved to be synonym of Cerceris somotorensis Balthasar, 1955 (Bajári 1956b) and completed the catalogue of the Hungarian Cerceris fauna (Bajári 1956c). In "New Sphecidae for the fauna of Hungary", she published fau- nistic data of high number of Sphecidae recorded firstly for the fauna of Hungary. (Bajári 1957b). With László Móczár, they completed the Hymenoptera part in a book titled "Collection of animals" (Móczár and Bajári 1962). Walter Linsenmaier (18th August 1917 Stuttgart - 31st October 2000 Ebikon). Walter Linsenmaier was a well known artist, famous for his paintings of nature like insects, birds, plants and he was also the leading Chrysididae (cuckoo wasps) expert of his age. He was bom in Germany, Stuttgart, but his family soon moved to Switzerland. He initially continued the art of his father and worked as stucco artist and also practized the taxidermy of animals which leaded to establish later his private museum. He studied drawing and illustration at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts where he got his teaching degree and became professional nature illustrator. From the surrealistic trends of his early ages, his art moved to the realistic direction of natural art. His most famous book is the "Insects of the world" which contains nearly 2000 artistic illustrations. Together with his father, they established a private museum with landscape panoramas filled with the typical animal species of different natural habitats. In 1943, he published his painting titled "Dun ein Bild einer farbenprächtigen Goldwespe" in Auftrag der Kunstzeitschrift. This was the beginning of his scientific activity as entomologist in the field of the cuckoo wasps (Chrysididae) research. Linsenmaier took numerous collecting trips to Europe, North Africa, Turkey, California and Brazil. His private collection reached the 250 000 specimens which includes 60 000 cuckoo wasps specimens with hundred of types (he described approx. 600 Chrysididae species). His collection is deposited in the Natur-Museum Lucerne. Linsenmaier described 3 species from Hungary (amongst many other countries) namely Hedychrum aureicolle ssp. niemelai Linsenmaier 1959; Hedychridium chloropygum ssp. spatium Linsenmaier 1959 (syn. of Hedychridium caputaureum Trautmann & Trautmann, 1919) and Chrysis ger- mari ssp. fulminans Linsenmaier, 1951. Two of them has very indefinite place of capture: "Österreich-Ungarn" (Linsenmaier 1951, 1959). Sporadic Hungarian data can be found in "Altes und Neues von den Chrysididen" (Linsenmaier 1997). Géza Zilahi-Sebess (12th December 1905 Marosugra - 30th April 1960 Debrecen, zoologist, professor of Debrecen University of Sciences). After his secondary schools in Arad, Nagyenyed and Hajdúböszörmény, Zilahi graduated at Debrecen University. Before the WW2, he worked 18 years for Szeged University and finally became professor. After 4 years military service, he returned to Szeged, but soon, from 1949, he moved
