Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 99. (Budapest 2007)

Wilson, M. R. ; Takiya, D. M.: Cicadellinae (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae) described by Leopold Melichar in the Hungarian Natural History Museum

SIGNORÉT, FABRICIUS, STÂL, WALKER, DISTANT, and FOWLER. Subsequently he designated lectotypes of many species as a precursor to his own taxonomic revisions (in which he made around 350 synonyms and described 735 species). The availability of these taxonomic monographs and subsequent publications has made the Cicadellinae a relatively well-known group. In 2004 a project was started, funded by UK-based Leverhulme Trust, which enabled a compilation of digital images of Cicadellinae. Initially specimens identified by YOUNG in the course of his work have been used for photographs, but visits to museums in Europe where original historic type material is housed have provided specimens of species previously only known from this type material. LEOPOLD MELICHAR AND THE BUDAPEST CONNECTION LEOPOLD MELICHAR (1856-1924) was born in Brno, Moravia (now in Czech Republic), on December 5 1856 and died in Brno on September, 2 1924. For most of his career MELICHAR was a medical doctor in Vienna. He studied medicine in Prague and graduated in 1881 and first worked in Prague before moving to Vienna in 1888, where he worked as a high official with the Ministry of Health. An interest in Homoptera was suggested to him by LADISLAV DUDA and by 1896 he had published work on the central European fauna. His work on non-European Homoptera started at that time, including specimens collected in Sri Lanka by the Czech entomologist UZEL (MELICHAR 1903b). In 1912 he retired to Brno to allow more time to be spent of entomology, but during WWI he became chief of a Red Cross Hospital on Brno. During his life he was an enthusiastic collector and travelled to North Africa, Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean region. On his death his insect collection was passed to the Moravian Museum in Brno where it is currently housed. MELICHAR was the first since VICTOR SIGNORÉT (1816-1889) to attempt a monographic treatment of the Cicadellinae, but no part was published during his life. As well as his own collection, he also examined specimens from other European museums, especially from Budapest. His manuscript was sent to Dr. GÉZA HORVÁTH at the Hungarian Natural History Museum for publication in the Annales Musei Nationales Hungarici where four parts appeared between 1924 and 1932. However, in 1951, following questions about the completion of the series and the remaining manuscript, Dr. VILMOS SZÉKESSY published a further part in Melichar's name (MELICHAR \95\a). In these monographs, seventy-seven new cicadelline genera and around 200 taxa in the species-group