Az Alpokalja természeti képe közlemények 5. (Praenorica - Folia historico-naturalia. Szombathely, 2002)

Praenorica Folia historico-naturalia, V (2002) The author began to process the collections in Hungarian museums in 1995, realizing on the one hand the urgency of the task and on the other gathering the data required for a general revision of the leaf-beetle fauna in the Carpathian Basin. The first stage in this involved a survey of the collections held at museums of the country. The findings of the collections made within the Bükk National Park have already been published (TOMOV et al. 1996). Publications on the leaf-beetle collection at the Mátra Museum in Gyöngyös (ViG 1998a), and of the leaf-beetle fauna in the Duna-Dráva National Park (ViG 1998b), the Aggtelek National Park (ViG 1999), the Villány Hills (ViG 2000) and county Somogy (ViG 2001) have already appeared. Paper concerning the leaf beetle fauna of the Fertő-Hanság National Park is in press (ViG in press). This paper reports on the processing of the leaf-beetle collection made by the amateur coleopterist ATTILA PODLUSSÁNY, which is preserved at the Savaria Museum in Szombathely. SOME REMARKS ABOUT THE COLLECTION The amateur coleopterist Attila PODLUSSÁNY collected insects, mainly beetles, almost from childhood. Over the decades, he developed his collection into what is probably the country's largest private collection containing the largest number of beetle taxa. In 1995, he was prompted by lack of space and considerations of specialization to offer his collection for sale to Hungarian public institutions. The Savaria Museum in Szombathely purchased from him the collections of leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) and bruchids (Bruchidae). The rest of the collection, apart from the proboscideans, were purchased by the Mátra Museum in Gyöngyös. The leaf-beetle collection contains almost 10,000 specimens, of which most come from the Middle Europe or the Balkan Peninsula. The remainder was collected in Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Mexico. Most of the specimens were collected personally by Attila PODLUSSÁNY, but he also increased his collection through exchanges and gifts. (This is reflected in the many entomologists whose names feature among the collectors.) The majority of the collection consists of specimens collected in the Vas and Veszprém counties of Hungary. Some of these, which come from Western Hungary, have been covered in two earlier publications by the author (ViG 1996; VIG and ROZNER 1996). Although detailed data about the distribution and faunistic importance of each species can be found in the descriptive section, special mention is made here also of the most important species, whose scarcity gives them special importance in the fauna of this country. The collection contains two species that were new to the Hungarian fauna. One is Lilioceris schneiden (Weise, 1900), which had hitherto been known in Italy and Central Europe. Further collection work and processing of museum collections will make it possible to gauge the distribution of the species in Hungary. It can be distinguished from the species L. merdigera (Linnaeus, 1758) only by the chitinized parts of the aedeagus and spermatheca. External anatomical marks are unreliable because there exist numerous transitional forms between the two species. The other species new to the Hungarian fauna is Cassida bergeali 7