Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)
Bálint, Zs.: Lepidoptera collections of historical importance in the Hungarian Natural History Museum
Although he had interest in natural history previously, he could not have an important collection because he changed his residency quite often and he was overloaded by performances. When he got to know FRIEDRICH TREITSCHKE (see below), they started to work together not only in theatre related topics, but also in entomology. TREITSCHKE brought OCHSENHEIMER to Vienna and could arrange his employment in the "Hoftheater". In Vienna OCHSENHEIMER'S health soon started to decline, he became more and more focused on lepidopterology, and he got tremendous support in this activity from TREITSCHKE too, who joined him on his excursions also because of gaining a better health. Their relationship lead to the publication of the influential book series: Die Schmetterlinge von Europa, which was started by OCHSENHEIMER and finished by TREITSCHKE (OCHSENHEIMER 1807-1816, OCHSENHEIMER & TREITSCHKE 1825, TREITSCHKE 1825-1835). At the end of his life OCHSENHEIMER was asked to recuratc the Lepidoptera material of the "k.-k. Hofmuseum". After OCHSENHEIMER'S death his collection was purchased from his widow by the Hungarian National Museum on 23 rd of October, 1823 for the Naturalia Cabinet under the advise of IMRE FRIVALDSZKY, who was the associate curator at that time. During the Big Flood of Pest in 1838 the Hungarian National Museum was affected, many collections sustained a loss. The OCHSENHEIMER collection was considered to be heavily damaged (ABAFI-AIGNER 1898: 60; SCHMIDT 1923: 52). According to the report on the status of the museum's collections after the flood presented by ISTVÁN HORVÁT (1784-1846) to Palatin JOSEPH (file 287/1838.III.20; copy in the archive of the HNHM Lepidoptera collection) it is written that "etiam in cabineto rerum naturalium praetor madefacta herbaria viva vix aliquod evenit infortunium". Accordingly, the natural history collections were not so much affected because in the report no loss was mentioned. However, it seems that the collection was indeed affected as certain OCHSENHEIMER specimens show damage or deformation typically caused by humidity. This might result that only a portion of the collection could be secured. According to the unpublished notes of LAJOS KOVÁCS (1900-1971), research Academic scientists of the HNHM (BÁLINT & RONKAY 2002), the OCHSENHEIMER collection was dispersed in the "Pável-Schmidt" era. KOVÁCS prepared an inventory of the OCHSENHEIMER macromoth specimens he found and made a comparison on the basis of original documents. He was able to find only the one third (n = 1,516) of the Macrolepidoptera specimens. Then KOVÁCS arranged the Macrolepidoptera material into 12 standard museum drawers, which was recurated recently into the present state. At present there are 1568 original OCHSENHEIMER specimens, 52 specimens more than the KovÁCS's figure. These specimens were found in the general collection by museum staff subsequent to KOVÁCS, plus the material of 23 specimens which has been returned from the agricultural institute Georgikon (see below). KOVÁCS also made an inventory of the micromoths, but the specimens were left in the TREITSCHKE cabinet. However, the original cabinet for micromoth was most probably not sufficient safe enough because the OCHSENHEIMER micromoth material is now kept in a modern museum drawer. This work was presumably done also by KOVÁCS himself. Discussion - Already in his lifetime OCHSENHEIMER was an influential lepidopterists. He was corresponding with many people, thus it was possible to gather information and
