Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)

Korsós, Z.: History of the Herpetological Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

LAJOS MÉHELY gives a different history of the beginning of the herpetological material in his chapter paper written for the 100

th anniversary of the National Museum (MÉHELY 1902). According to him, JÓZSEF SADLER and ISTVÁN DREHER were the starters of the collection, the former with 3 Hungarian species, the latter with 4 turtle shells. This is partly contradicted by a review for the National Museum from 1896 (ANONYMOUS 1896), which lists in detail the employees of the museum, and in which it is seen that ISTVÁN DREHER zoological scribe (and taxidermist) was in employment only from 1866 (until his death in 1888). But, there was more than one ISTVÁN in the DREHER family, and most probably the one who donated the shells was the father of the one who worked as scribe and taxidermist. ERZSÉBET SZABÓNÉ REGÖCZI (born ERZSÉBET DREHER, 1924- ) personally stated that this was his great-grandfather, ISTVÁN DREHER (1791-1849), who - as a scientist - worked with frogs, lizards, and turtles in the Hungarian National Museum, beside JÁNY and later SADLER. He died as the "inspector" of the Museum and is buried in the Kerepesi cemetery in Pest. Surprisingly, none of the earlier editions of the Museum's history mentioned him (KUBINYI 1861, PULSZKY 1888, HORVÁTH 1902). According to MÉHELY (1902), the increase in the next year (1823) consisted of 2 turtle, 3 lizard, 5 snake, 3 salamander and 2 frog specimens ( 15 specimens altogether), and they were all collected by JÁNY. These acquisitions are all indicated in the inventory list of 1823, but it can also be seen there that the 37 specimens from 1821 in the "'Consignatio Amphibiorum" precede them. After SADLER, IMRE FRIVALDSZKY (1799-1870) was employed, who - from 1822 as an assisstant curator, and between 1850-1851 as a curator - brought huge energy to the expansion of the zoological collections. FRIVALDSZKY was an educated scientist (graduated at the medical faculty of the Budapest University), later became primarily a zoologist (ENDRÖDI 1971, BÁLINT & ABADJIEV 2006), and not only did he improve the collections favourably, but he also established the base of Hungarian faunal research. His dissertation was a monograph of Hungarian snakes (FRIVALDSZKY 1823, Fig. 6). In this 62-page text besides a general description of the snakes according to the actual viewpoint - he gives the incredibly detailed description of 11, at that time already-known species from the Carpathian Basin. There appears two viper species (under the names V. ammodytes and Pelias berus), 8 colubrid snakes all considered to be in the genus Coluber (according to their present names: the Smooth Snake, the Aesculapian Snake, the Caspian Whipsnake, the Grass Snake, the Dice Snake and two species which are not found in Hungary today: the Four-lined Snake and the Balkan Whipsnake). The book includes one illustration, which consists of three parts depicting the headscales of the snakes with their Latin names (Fig. 7). IMRE FRIVALDSZKY enriched the collection with 11 Hungarian and 18 foreign reptile species, in the beginning of his employment, but he later mainly worked with insects. Because of this, the museum had to wait for the increase in the collection of vertebrate material until 1834, when SALAMON JÁNOS PETÉNYI (1799-1855) joined the museum. He was elected to replace JÁNY. He was an assistant curator from 1834, and a curator from 1850. From this time on, FRIVALDSZKY handled the invertebrates and PETÉNYI the vertebrates. This was the so-called "Frivaldszky-Petényi era" (HORVÁTH 1897), which stands as a milestone in the history of Hungarian zoology, thanks to the work of these two exceptional scientists. However, no herpetologically relevant data or text remains from PETÉNYI.