L. Forró szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 9. 1994 (Budapest, 1994)

Korsós, Z.: Checklist, preliminary distribution maps, and bibliography of millipedes in Hungary (Diplopoda)

continuously change and the information gathered always increase. Summaries on distributions should hence be considered as members of a series describing the reality at different co-ordinates of time and space. The present set of maps about the ranges of millipedes are only from within the borders of present-day Hungary. Data are based on the literature and the Myriapoda Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. In the case of the first, only reliable species identifications are considered, and distribution data are taken mainly from myriapodological papers of the second half of this century. Identifications in the Museum collection have been checked by the author, and data evaluation was finished by the end of 1993. It should be mentioned that a definitely important myriapod material, collected by late Prof. Imre Loksa, is housed in the Institute of Zoosystematics and Ecology of the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Because of the sudden decease of the collector, the material is in a largely unordered state, which makes its availability for further studies especially difficult. These data are not included in the present analysis (except of those already published by Loksa), and it is emphasized that a more exact picture on the millipede fauna of Hungary is expected (and will be summarized in a faunal monograph) with the involvement of this collection. An application for raising funds, necessary for the preparation of this material and initiating co-operation of international experts, is under progress. In the final part of the paper a comprehensive bibliography concerning Hungarian myriapodology is given. Papers dealing with the fauna of present-day Hungary are only listed; however, relevant works of the three Hungarian zoologists: Ö. Tömösváry, J. Daday, and L. Szalay, showing the greatest myriapodological activity, are enumerated completely. Ödön (= Edmund) Tömösváry (1852-1884) had a promising talent for zoology. Unfortunately, he died very young, at the age of 32, of tuberculosis. His name is immortalized by the peculiar organ of myriapods, which was first described by him in 1883 (Tömösváry 1883c: in Hungarian, 1883d: in German). His biography is given and a complete list of his papers is listed by Herman (1885). Jenő (= Eugene) Daday (1855-1920) was primarily a specialist of Crustacea, but produced a number of important papers on other, non-insect arthropod groups, and hence on myriapods as well. A complete bibliography was compiled by Lukács (1975). László Szalay (1887-1970) worked mainly on Hydracarina, however, as a curator of the arachnoid (at that time incl. myriapod) collection in the Zoological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, he had also some faunistic and popular papers on centipedes and millipedes. A complete list of his works can be found in Allodiatoris (1973). Hungarian myriapodology in this early phase can otherwise only be characterized by small faunistical papers of other authors. A number of Hungarian zoologists occasionally dealt with millipedes and centipedes during their activities (Bíró 1901, Chyzer 1886, Csiki 1903, Entz 1905, Kadocsa 1911, Lendl 1897, Margó 1879, Merkl 1883, Náday 1918, Paszlavszky 1878a, 1878b, Petricskó 1891, 1892, Rotarides 1928, Szabó 1931, 1932 and Szilády 1925). They contributed with several data to the known distribution and zoology of millipedes. The fourth, and most prominent Hungarian myriapodologist was undoubtedly Imre Loksa (1923-1992). Obituaries, with list of publications, are published by Dózsa-Farkas (1992a, 1992b) and Korsós (1993). A final evaluation of his many-sided soil zoological activity is still in progress. One of Loksa's student, Sziráki (1966, 1967) dealt for a short time also with millipedes. Starting as a pioneer, he compiled a key for the Hungarian millipedes based exclusively on female vulval characters. His careful observations and illustrations are still useful even today. The faunal list provided in his doctoral thesis is rather big (comprises 80 species), but only