Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Válogatott tanulmányok IV. - Natura Somogyiensis 15. / Miscellanea 4. (Kaposvár, 2009)

Haris Attila: A Zselic levéldarazsai (Hymenoptera: Symphyta)

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Natura Somogyiensis

(Carpinus betulus). Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) is native there but plantations of other conifer species are also widespread. A local curiosity is the Millenium Linden Forest established in 1896.

Climate is continental, influenced by Mediterranean effects. Winters are mild and summers hot. The yearly sunshine hours are between 1950-2500, increasing from West to East. Annual average precipitation about 700-750 mm and yearly mean temperature 9.8- 10.7 °C.

First traces of human settlements date back to the 5th millennium BC. (Neolithic settlements at Szalacska and Visnye). Remains from Lipótfa, Kisasszond and the treasure of Simonfa are dated back to the Bronze Age. Hedrehely was a Celtic settlement once (after the 4th century BC). Although Pannonia was conquered by Romans after 35 AD, there hardly any traces of Romans in this area Roman fortress of Kaposszentjakab (coins, bronze statuettes). The first mention of Zselic is found in the donation certificate of Hungarian king László the 1st dated to 1093. In the 13th century 10 villages are recorded from the area, like Márcadó, Szerénke, Dercze, Vállusfej, Szerentelke, Nyírakol, Szentlászló, Bőszénfa and Karan. All of them were the property of the Saint Jacob Abbey in Kaposszentjakab. After 1220, the Pannonhalma Abbey settled Slavonic lumberjkacks to the Zselicség (the name of Kistótváros preserves their memories). Until the Turkish occupation the population was dominantly Hungarian. After the Turkish period, 90 of the original 130 villages were destroyed. The landowners replaced the mostly extinct Hungarian population with German settlers. Up to the 15th century, the members of the Győr dynasty were the lords of the Zselicség. Later, the land was passed to Lady Orsolya Derssfy. After her marriage to Prince Miklós Esterházy, the Esterházy dynasty became the major landowner. In our days, the most valuable territories including the protected area belong to Somogyi Forest Management and Timber Processing Company.

Although, the botanical investigation of the Zselicség was commenced by Pál Kitaibel in 1799, intensive zoological research started only comparatively recently, in the late 70’s of the 20th century. Zoological investigation was started by amateur lepidopterologists from Kaposvár, namely by Sándor Pazsiczky and Miklós Nattán in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, they did not publish their captures. The first zoological paper on the Zselicség (Polinszky 1886) was published by Emil Polinszky in 1886 on the beetle fauna of Somogy County, mainly around Szigetvár (in that time Szigetvár belonged to Somogy County). Unfortunately no one followed his publication activity. In the early 1980’s, Ákos Uherkovich initiated the Zselic research. Because of a lack of money, he never published his planned monograph, therefore the manuscripts which had already been prepared were published in various local periodicals. Till now, 5 insect groups have been elaborated. Macrolepidoptera are represented by 889 species (Ábrahám 1989, 1992, Ábrahám and Uherkovich 1993, Szabó 2007, Uherkovich 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982a, b, Uherkovich and Ábrahám 2007), Aculeata (Hymenoptera) by 698 species (Józan 1990, 1992, 2006), Syrphidae (Diptera) by 110 species (Tóth 1992), Carabidae (Coleoptera) by 122 species (Horvatovich 1990), and Trichoptera by 84 species (Nógrádi and Uherkovich 1990). Between 2006 and 2008, 3 biodiversity days (3 terms of 3 days in spring, summer and autumn seasons) were held in Gyürűfü, Southern Zselic (Baranya county). The results these biodiversity days have been published in a separate monograph (Ábrahám 2009). Zoological results of Zselic researches are also included in the monograph titled “Catalogue of the fauna of Somogy County” (Ábrahám 2001). On the sawflies of Zselicség we have only sporadic data: firstly Haris published on the sawfly collection of the Somogy county museum and also the list of sawflies of Somogy county including numerous records from this region (Haris 1998,