L. Forró szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 12. 1998 (Budapest, 1998)

Dely, O. Gy.: In commemoration of Mrs. Baron Géza Fejérváry, Dr. Aranka Mária Lángh (1898-1988)

Dr. Aranka Mária Lángh in 1956 tion that "auch die Gattung Ophisaurus im westlichen Europa entstand, und von dort nach dem Osten zog, ebenso wie dies durch G. J. v. Fejérváry [...] die Varaniden betreffend gezeigt wurde" (p. 215), should also be mentioned. She resigned from her paid position in September 1924, as she was "forced to ask for" her reclassification to the B List due to reduction of staff because of her good family conditions. However, as a volunteer, she continued to work at the Museum. Previously, on July 19 she already offered in writing to the "Zoological Department of the Hungarian National Museum" her herpetological collection of European and exotic taxa, containing several rarities and filling two normal size cabinets that she valued at 1500 Dollars. Four years later, in Spring 1928, when her husband led a six-weeks expedition to Malta and neighbouring islands, she accompanied him and collected amphibians and reptiles together with Dr. Gyula Kieselbach. On June 2, 1932, her husband suddenly died. She and her two small children (aged 12 and 10 years) found themselves without support from one day to another, and she returned to her beloved museum due to the altered family conditions. She rejoined the staff of the museum as a curator (see the minutes of the 335. session of the Zoological Section), and took over the management of the Herpetological Collection. Widowed at a young age (at 34 years) she picked up the scientific lead "dropped" about eight years earlier with enormous force. In her old and new position she primarily focussed on editing her husband's five incomplete works, which she supplemented on the basis of his notes, and made ready for publication. During her work between 1932 and 1935, and even 1936, she intensely studied the herpetological literature, but did not start working on new subjects. However, she produced a number of high-quality popular articles in this period. These papers mainly dealt with boid and viperid snakes, varanid and lacertid lizards, and chelonians and crocodilians, while only a few had the life and development of newts and frogs as a subject. From the earliest years of her restart on, and especially in the subsequent time she collected amphibians and reptiles from different parts of the country with enormous devotion. Her idea was to produce a faunistic catalogue of the species inhabiting the Carpathian Basin listing their distribution data, sim-