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

Tenora, F.: Dr. Éva Murai - 70 years old

MISCELLANEA Tomus 12. ZOOLOGIC A 1998 HUNGARICA p. 5-10 Dr. Éva Murai - 70 years old This year the outstanding Hungarian parasitologist Dr. Éva Murai Kovács celebrates her 70th birthday. She entered the scientific life briefly after her university studies publishing her first scientific work on the beetles of the family Cerambicidae in 1955. During the subsequent period, she joined the group of young enthusiastic workers to develop the parasitology laboratory of the Zoological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest. She has remained faithful to this institution during the whole of her active scientific life. During that period she paid her attention to material sampling and to further scientific studies beside the organizational work. In 1969 she was invited by Professor Baer for several months to Switzerland in order that she might study tapeworms of the family Hymenolepididae at the Neuchatel University. This set the basis of her future parasitological orientation - to devote herself mainly to the study of tapeworms. That is why we find first of all the problems of their systematics and taxonomy in the scientific work of Dr. Murai. The studies which she has published herself or with Hungarian have enriched significantly the knowledge of the helminth fauna of vertebrates from Hungary. Copious international co-operations belong to her scientific activities. They are documented by the studies elaborated with co-authors from the countries where she also worked, in most cases in scientific institutions or universities. They were Switzerland (C. Vaucher), the Czech Republic (F. Tenora, M. Stanek), Bulgaria (T. Genov, B. Georgiev, Z. Dimitrova), Poland (T. Sulgostowska), Austria (K. Pfaller). Among her co-workers, for instance, also those from Spain (S. Mas-Coma, C. Feliu, Valero and others), from the USA (R. L. Rausch) and from Norway (C. Berg) are found. Dr. É. Murai enriched significantly the world science. From the field of taxonomy and systematics, herself or in co-operation with co-workers, she has described a series of new taxa. Let us mention, e.g. Kotlanolepis gen. nov., Leporidotaenia gen. nov., Taenia kotlani sp. n., Rodentolepis meszarosi sp. n., Paranoplocephala mascomai sp. n., Tridontolepis torrentis sp. n., Anoplocephaloides pseudowimerosa sp. n., Pseudangularia europaea sp. n. Most of her papers have been published in Hungarian scientific journals, the greatest number of them in Parasitologia Hungarica. She attended at the birth of this journal and, as well, she has devoted to it the main part of her active specialist's work as the assistant editor and editor-in-chief. As to foreign journals, we find her studies in famous parasitological journals, such as Systematic Parasitology, Journal of Parasitology, Acta Zoologica Fennica, and others. In the Slovak Republic she has published her papers in Ochrana Prirody (Bratislava). The account of scientific studies (78) reflects her scientific efforts and enthusiasm, persistence in work, ardour for science, to which she has dedicated her whole active life. Only in this way it was possible that the array of problems solved by her has been such diverse. She has devoted to the helminths parasitic in Chiroptera, Insectivora, Rodentia and Carnivora. A part of her work has been focused also on fish and bird parasites. Not at last, she has solved even problems of parasites in domestic animals, namely cysticercosis and echinococcosis. It is necessary to briefly mention studies of ecological character that focus on the faunas of the Hortobágy and Kiskunság National Parks or the Bátorliget Nature Re-