Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 79. (Budapest 1987)

Matskási, I.: In memoriam Dr. Zoltán Kaszab (1915-1986)

Zoltán Kaszab was born on the 23rd of September 1915 at Farmos (Hungary). His underlying interest has always been an intense love for nature, firmly established by the secondary school. After secondary school he enrolled the Pázmány Péter University, Budapest, where he studied to be teacher of natural history and chemistry. In 1937, the last year of his university studies, he already obtained his doctoral degree, qualified "summa cum laude" in zoology-geology-mineralogy. In the same year he entered the Zoosystematical Institute of the University, headed by Prof. Endre Dudich, and parallel, he also worked in the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest. He became the head of the Zoological Department of the Museum in 1955. Since 1970 until 1985 — when he retired — he was director-general of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Dr. Zoltán Kaszab, a taxonomist-systematist, was an outstanding personality in basic biological research. In the period of nearly half a century, since 1937, he published 397 scientific papers in about 10,000 printed pages in various journals of some 25 countries. As a result of his taxonomical research he described 3700 new taxa. He was recognized all over the world, which is well illustrated by the fact that 435 specific and 52 other taxa have been named in his honour. His work was not restricted to one particular continent or zoogeographical region; his basic revisions and monographs embraced the material of the five continents. Dr. Zoltán Kaszab was an entomologist, within this a coleopterologist, a renown specialist of blister beetles (Meloidae) and darking beetles (Tenebrionidae). Early in his museological research career he became internationally recognized as the world's leading authority on the taxonomy, systematics, distribution and evolution of these beetle families. His investigations were concentrated on two different but equally important regions. One is the Tenebrionidae fauna of the arid zones of the world, since in any desert fauna, among the apterous terricolous insects, this group plays a decisive role. The results of his taxonomic research were always interpreted in the light of ecology, zoogeography and fauna genetics. Especially important are his taxonomic elaborations and statements concerning the arid faunal history of Tenebrionidae in the arid zones of Asia, as in Arabia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. As if to counterbalance the former, his other major field of interest was the fauna of the same groups of beetles inhabiting the tropical forest belt both in the Old and the New World, primarily that of Asia, the Papuan islands and the Pacific region. His works discussing the Pacific islands (e. g. The Tenebrionidae of New Caledonia) presented a long string of facts proving the changes in plate tectonics by recent zoological concepts. In some 100 studies he elucidated a phylogenetic system of the beetle family Meloidae, throwing light, at the same time, on the taxonomy of African, Oriental and many Neotropic groups, and again his results were coupled with important Zoogeographie recognitions of connections existing between the distributions of Madagascan, Sahel and Saharo-sind faunal elements. Dr. Kaszab's expeditions to Mongolia were of special importance. Between 1963 and 1968 he headed six expeditions in Mongolia with the view to explore the invertebrate fauna of this well-nigh unknown territory. He collected almost half a million invertebrate specimens there. Through these field studies, he became one of the most knowledgeable biologists of Central-Asia, as well as an acknowledged leader in arid zone zoology. In a series of papers entitled "Ergebnisse der Zoologischen Forschungen von Dr. Z. Kaszab in der Mongolei" 480 studies were published so far, which include the description of some 1600 species new to science. As a result of his collecting, organizing and elaborating activity he laid down the foundation of the modern fauna research of Mongolia. The two families, Tenebrionidae and Meloidae were elaborated by himself, and besides the taxonomic results, he always examined the Zoogeographie and fauna genetic interrelations. He was invited into many countries for studies; as a scientific speaker, a taxonomic and