Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)
78 Phylum Arthropoda SUBPHYLUM CHELICERATA (CHELICERATES) Class Arachnida (spiders and allies) Subclass Pseudoscorpiones (pseudoscorpions) The chapter of Fauna Regni Hungáriáé on pseudoscorpions ('Pseudoscorpionidea') contains a single record from Sárvár (DADAYl896d). The small number of faunistic records available from the Kőszeg Hills became known after the material collected in 1936-40 by staff of Zoosystematics Department of the Péter Pázmány University of Sciences in Budapest under ALADÁR VISNYA was identified. JÓZSEF SZENT-IVÁNY (1941b) reported four pseudoscorpion species from the area, of which Neobisium germanicum had been collected in Hungary for the first time. Recently, nine pseudoscorpion species were recorded from the Fertő-Hanság National Park. Most are common, widely distributed species in Hungary and Europe, but Dendrochernes cyrneus deserves mentioning as a corticol species known only from a few localities over a wide area (MURÁNYI and KONTSCHÁN 2002). Subclass Opiliones (harvestmen) The first harvestman record from the West Hungarian border region came from ADOLF LENDL (1894). Fauna Regni Hungáriáé contains only a single record from Kőszeg (DADAY 1896b). The monograph Hungary's Harvestmen by GÁBOR KOLOSVÁRY (1929) also gives records from Kőszeg. The first communication on harvestmen from the Kőszeg Hills comes from the same author. He listed ten species found in the district, taken from the first collections of the Zoosystematics Department of the Péter Pázmány University of Sciences in Budapest (KOLOSVÁRY 1936a). Collections by ZOLTÁN KASZAB, JÁNOS BALOGH and ALADÁR VISNYA in 1937 sent further sizeable quantities of harvestmen to GÁBOR KOLOSVÁRY for identification. Another 15 species were found during processing to occur in the district (KOLOSVÁRY 1940), including Roeweriolus hungaricus, which he described (KOLOSVÁRY 1933). Since then, the species and genus names have been equated as synonyms and the valid name today is Astrobunus meadi. Other specimens of R. hungaricus, some collected in the West Hungarian border region (KOLOSVÁRY 1944), have been correctly attributed. Subclass Acari (mites) Mites form a vast subclass that is complex to classify. Several of the taxa distinguished make up realms with their own specialists. The tiny size of the animals and the shortage of suitable microscopes long remained an obstacle to regular research. Records from the first significant publication were taken over by JÓZSEF JABLONOWSKI in Fauna Regni Hungáriáé, 3 but they include no data from West Hungarian border region. 3 See also: KARPELLES, L. 1891. Adalékok Magyarország atkafaunájához (Contributions towards a mite fauna of Hungary). Mathematikai és Természettudományi Közlemények 25:80-134.
