Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 101. (Budapest 2009)
Pálfy, J.: Review of invertebrate and vertebrate paleontological types in the collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum
20 /• Pàlfy Apart from such anecdotal curiosities of individual taxa and their type specimens, a synoptic analysis of empirical distribution patterns is also of interest. As noted above, the individual contribution of authors is highly unequal. The distribution of authorship follows the Pareto law, well known from economics and also observed in other social sciences (REED 2001). It is also known as the 80-20 rule, applied to observations where roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the cases, such as in the original formulation which reports an observation that 80% of wealth belongs to 20% of the population. In our case, approximately 20% of the authors erected 80% of the taxa. I argue that such distribution of authorship is the master parameter that controls the other analyzed distributions, i.e. by the taxonomic group, age, geographic and stratigraphie origin, where the Pareto distribution also appear to hold (see Figs 2, 4-7) and that may also be termed the "monograph effect". Similar power law behavior is also noted for many natural phenomena, including biological and paleontological examples such as the body size distribution of animals (MAY 1988) and the frequency and severity of mass extinctions (SOLÉ et al. 1997). In the type collection, the Pareto principle acts upon paleontologists whose "wealth" can be regarded in terms of the species described. Although fossils as natural objects could also take part in phenomena exhibiting power law behavior, our observations are explained by social rather than natural scientific factors. * Acknowledgements - Publication of the type catalogue was made possible by a grant of NKA (National Cultural Fund). The coauthors of the catalogue and my other fellow curators are thanked for their help and cooperation. ZSUZSANNA MOLNÁR provided invaluable assistance in data collection and entry, as well as in data processing and drafting for this paper. Digital photography by E. HANKÓ is appreciated. Critical reviews by A. DULAI, Zs. MOLNÁR and A. VÖRÖS helped improve the manuscript. This is MTA-MTM Paleo contribution No. 94. REFERENCES BÁCSKA Y, E. 1994: A Coquand-gyűjtemény. [The Coquand Collection.] - In: KECSKEMÉTI, T. & PAPP , G. (eds): Földünk hazai kincsesházai - Tanulmányok a magyarországi földtudományi gyűjtemények történetéről. [Historical studies on the collections of Hungarian Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology.] Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, pp. 119-124. BÁLDI , T. 1973: Mollusc Fauna of the Hungarian Upper Oligocene (Egerian ). Studies in Stratigraphy, Palaeoecology, Palaeogeography and Systematics. - Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 511 pp. BÁLDI, T. 1986: Mid-Tertiary Stratigraphy and Paleogeographic Evolution of Hungary. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 201 pp. Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 101, 2009
