Dr. Éva Murai szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 3. 1985 (Budapest, 1985)

Forró, L.; Müller, P.: An annotated list of Decapoda material collected by L. Biró in New Guinea

An annotated list of Decapoda material collected by L BIRÓ in New Guinea By L. FORRÓ & P. MÜLLER (Received 25 November, 1984) ABSTRACT. Data of seven Decapoda species described by NOBILI are given. Lectotypes of Cyclograpsus integer H.Milne Edwards unidens (Nobili, 1905), Holthuisiana (Holthuisiana) biroi (Nobili, 1905) and Tritodynamia horvathi Nobili, 1905 have been designated. A list of extant material from New Guinea, collected by BIRO and identified by NOBILI, is given. Lajos BIRO (1856-1931) (Fig. 1), one of the most renowned New Guinea explorers, was born in Transylvania. He studied natural history, mainly zoology, in Budapest. BIRÓ was a very talented collector, he made collecting trips all over Hungary, at that time he was said to know the country the best among the zoologists. In 1895 S. FENICHEL, Hungarian naturalist, suddenly died in New Guinea, whose example initiated BIRO to continue his work. He sold his private library and collection, signed a contract with the Hungarian National Museum On 1st January, 1896 he arrived in New Guinea and returned in December 1901. His collectings in that region were very successful, he sent about 200 000 animals, mostly insects, and several thousand ethnographical objects to the National Museum. After his return BIRÓ worked with the National Museum as "Custos honoris causa", he sorted out his material and prepared it for study. Besides this he made some collecting trips to Tunisia, Bulgaria and Turkey, but unfortunately he did not succeed in organizing yet another expedition to the Tropics. As a specialist he worked on Microhymenoptera and set up a valuable collection of this group. The wealth of BIRO's collections in New Guinea furnished a good basis for studying the fauna of that region. Many specialists worked on his material with more than 2 000 new species having been described (SZÉKESSY, 1956). BIRO' s Decapoda material was identified by NOBILI (1905b). NOBILI reported 33 taxa and described four new species and two new varieties. In this paper we intend to give an annotated list of the extant material, with particular reference to the type specimens. Three of NOBILI'

s new taxa have original specimens in the collection, in addition to them Tryto- dynamia horvathi described by NOBILI (1905a) is also treated in this paper. We hope that the information published in this paper will help resolving some problems in the taxonomy of these taxa. From the same material recently PRETZMANN (this volume) described a new species, Geosesarma ianthina sp. n. ANNOTATED LIST OF TYPE MATERIAL 1. Caridina weberi De Man var. p apu ana Nobili , 1905 1905b Caridina weberi papuana n. var. - Nobili: 481, pl. XII, fig. 1 1917 Caridina weberi papuana Nobili - Roux: 591 1934 Caridina weberi papuana Nobili - Roux: 218, 221