Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)

Phylum Arthropoda 151 Study of the Diptera fauna of the Sopron Hills recommenced in 1978 under the Natural History of Praenoricum research programme. Regular collections were made by MÁRIA CSIBY and SÁNDOR TÓTH. The early findings confirmed that the West Hungarian border region is one of the most interesting regions of Hungary from the dipterological point of view. The first stage of processing already revealed 92 Syrphidae species in the Sopron Hills (TÓTH 1981). Further collections yielded 5300 specimens of more than 150 Syrphidae species. The collection of Syrphidae held at the Savaria Museum in Szombathely is now the third largest in the country. It includes several curiosities, such as the very rare Eristalis alpinus or several examples of Cheilosia latifacies (TÓTH 1987b). At Fertő, SÁNDOR ANDRIKOVICS (1973) published the commonest species of non-biting midges (Chironomidae) in the pondweed of the lake. Dipterological researches present a similar picture in other parts of the West Hungarian border region. Until the Natural History of Praenoricum programme started, there were hardly more than sporadic collections and occasional faunistic summaries to present the regional findings (Soós 1938b and 1940d; SZILÁDY 1941; ZILAHI-SEBESS 1944; ARADI 1956 and 1959; MIHÁLYI 1959; DRASKOVITS 1966; MANNHEIMS 1966 and 1969; MARTINOVICH 1967). Data on gall-inducing flies damaging to forestry and horticulture were published by BÉLA AMBRUS (1965,1973and 1979). The insect mines known in Hungary were described by PÁL SURÁNYI (1942). Many types made by Diptera were also known in Western Hungary. Some of the Diptera material collected in 1936-7 by the Zoosystematics Department of the Péter Pázmány University of Sciences in Budapest (houseflies

—Muscidae) was processed by MÁRTON ACZÉL and published along with other dipterological data (ACZÉL 1940). The acalyptrate flies (Acalyptrata) were identified by ÁRPÁD SOÓS (1941, 1943a and 1946). A publication by the same author, following a revision of the chloropid flies (Chloropidae) of Hungary, contains data on Kőszeg (Soós 1943b). ZOLTÁN SZILÁDY collected a specimen of Thaumalea bezzi (Thaumaleidae) on May 1, 1938. This went to Debrecen University and therefore escaped the fire that damaged the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest in November 1956. The species has proved to be new to the Hungarian fauna (PAPP 1996; PAPP and MAJER 2000). Two humpbacked flies (Phoridae), Diplonevra funebris and Metopina brauen, were listed with Kőszeg as the locality by H. SCHMITZ (1953), founding father of Phoridae taxonomy. MIHÁLY WÉBER (1975 and 1976) gave Velem in the Kőszeg Hills as the locality for a female Clinocera wesmaeli (Empididae). The Diptera collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum has four broken pins on a label with the legend, 'Kőszeg, III. 1941, Visnya, from a beehive, Mycetobia - Mycetobia pallipes, but the specimens are missing. GÉZA ZILAHISEBESS (1960) included the species in the Hungarian fauna (with Kőszeg and Pécs as localities of occurrence), but the missing specimens make the record doubtful. (For more detail, see PAPP 2001a.) JÓZSEF MAJER began dipterological researches in the West Hungarian border region at the beginning of the 1980s, by examining deer and horse-