Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 102. (Budapest 2010)
Papp, J.: In memoriam Dr Henrik Steinmann (1932–2009)
8 J. Papp H ENRIK S TEINMANN topped off his scientific activity with two works. It was in the 1980s when he wrote his work that - in the form of a global monograph of about 2,200 pages (illustrated by nearly 3,500 figures) - gave a summary of the Dermaptera's taxonomy, zoogeography and evolution. This monograph was also published by Verlag Walter de Gruvter as a part of the acclaimed and well-established series of Das Tierwelt/The Animal Kingdom between 1986 and 1993. The "World Catalogue of Dermaptera , an addendum to the Monograph, was jointly published by the Hungarian Akadémiai Kiadó (Budapest) and the Dutch-British Kluwer Academic Publisher (Dordrecht and London) in 1989. His other work of more than 1,000 pages, assuring him a global acclaim, was the "World Catalogue of Odonata" published by Verlag Walter de Gruyter in two volumes with a breakdown of Zygoptera and Anisoptera. The two volumes came out in 1997. The Order of Odonata is quite popular amidst entomologists; actually, there is a remarkably high number of specialists that have dealt or are dealing with this order the world over. Nevertheless, there are hardly any general works published on this subject so far. In the early 1990s it was HENRIK STEINMANN who undertook to put together the World Catalogue of this Order, which contains every piece of information that may further the cause of Odonata research. HENRIK STEINMANN played a significant role in the public arena of Hungarian scientific life, as well. He acted as the Secretary of the Zoological Committee within the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for several years, and worked as the Chairman of the Environmental and Nature Conservation Committee in the 1970s. For nearly 20 years he was the editor of Magyarország Állatvilága (Fauna Hungáriáé) series, the Folia entomologica hungarica and Acta zoologica Academiae scientiarum Hungaricae. His versatile zoological erudition superbly manifested itself by the way he propagated scientific knowledge. He would write articles for Elet és Tudomány and Búvár , these Hungarian weeklies, in the 1960s and '70s. He had four books published on Architects in Animal Kingdom (1978), The Animals' Weapons ( 1979), Animals' Mating ( 1980), and Partners and Enemies in Animal Kingdom (1985). Each of them is a 200-300-page volume propagating general knowledge. When assessing HENRIK STEINMANN's scientific achievements, we can state that he was undoubtedly one of the most cultivated Hungarian Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. bung. 102, 2010
