Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 11. 1997 (Budapest, 1997)

Meisch, C.; Forró, L.: Checklist of Recent Ostracoda (Crustacea) from Hungary

species different from C. ophthalmica. The variety lata is therefore elevated to species rank here: Cypria lata (Sywula, 1981). A detailed redescription of this species will be given elsewhere. 6. Pseudocandona stagnalis (Sars, 1890). Recently Ponyi & Zánkai (1996) recorded „Candona cf. stagnalis Sars" from Hungary. Because of the uncertain identification, this species is dismissed from the present list. Discussion The scientific study of the Hungarian Crustacea fauna, including Ostracoda, started about 150 years ago and, as a result, the first papers were published in the 1850s. These early publications mainly dealt with the fauna of Budapest (Chyzer & Tóth 1857a, b , Tóth 1862 a, b, Margó 1879, Örley 1886a, b). Kertész (1893a, b) and Daday (1891a, b, 1892a, b, 1893a, b, c, d, e, 1897a, b, c) published data on the fauna of other areas, e.g. Lake Balaton, sodic waters, etc., as well. It is important to notice that the territory of Hungary has considerably changed in the last 140 years. In the present paper, only publications and data on Ostracoda collected from localities situated within the present Hungarian territory are considered. The results of the early faunistic investigations were summarized in 'Fauna Regni Hungáriáé', which lists all species and provides data on their distribution. In that publication, Daday (1896) recorded 241 crustacean taxa, including 34 species of Ostracoda reported from the Hungarian territory of that time. At the turn of the century, a comprehensive faunistic synopsis of Hungarian Ostracoda was provided by Daday (1900). This monography contained 47 species, 42 of which came from the present Hungarian territory. Interestingly, only 12 of those species were unknown in Budapest, 25 species were also recorded from Budapest, and 5 species were recorded only from the Hungarian capital. It was Endre Dudich who revived faunistic researches in Hungary between the two world wars. He collected from various terrestrial and aquatic habitats and his material was identified with the help of specialists. The publications by Klie (1930, 1939) and Kiefer & Klie (1927) were based on Dudich's material. The most recent and important of those papers, written by Klie (1939), lists 34 species of Ostracoda, 10 of which were new to the fauna of Hungary. However, only 17 of those species (two of them new to Hungary) came from the present Hungarian territory. After the Second World War, a new series, entitled 'Fauna Hungáriáé', was initiated to promote faunistic investigations in Hungary. Within this series, Farkas (1958b) compiled a comprehensive survey on Ostracoda, providing identification keys, notes on the ecology and distribution of all species. The book dealt with 87 species, 58 of which were listed as known from Hungary, while 29 others, put in square brackets, were designated as expected to occur in the area. Unfortunately, this synopsis is incomplete and confusing to some extent. Indeed, although submitted on 20. 11. 1957, Farkas' (1958b) 'fauna' did not take into account a number of species recorded in Hungary in the early 1950s, while others of the formerly recorded species were designated as expected to occur in Hungary. Since the 1950s, J. Megyeri and E J. Ponyi published extensively on the aquatic microfauna, including Ostracoda. Besides these two authors, many others have contributed to the knowledge of the Hungarian ostracod fauna. New species to the Hungarian fauna were recorded by Györe (1985) and Meisch & Wouters (1985).