78 Z. Korsós DELY,BOROS, and I. SZABÓ in <strong>the</strong> Bátorliget Bog in 1952 (photograph by I. SZABÓ) Preparation <strong>of</strong> collected reptiles at Giza, Egypt, 1957 (DELY,HORVÁTH,GOZMÁNY, from left to right) (photograph by I. VISÓVÖLGYI,HNHM) Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 100, 2008
<strong>History</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Herpetological</strong> <strong>Collection</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> HNHM 79 THE LAST PERIOD OF CLASSIC MUSEUM HERPETOLOGY The soil zoological collection trips marked with <strong>the</strong> name <strong>of</strong> JÁNOS BALOGH, pr<strong>of</strong>essor at <strong>the</strong> Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, played a great role in <strong>the</strong> increase <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> material <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> museum. The first was <strong>the</strong> South American soil zoological expedition to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in 1965–66 (participants were JÁNOS BALOGH,ISTVÁN ANDRÁSSY, IMRE LOKSA,SÁNDOR MAHUNKA and ANDRÁS ZICSI). This expedition brought some interesting material for DELY also: he wrote his one and only paper about tropical reptiles based on <strong>the</strong> examination <strong>of</strong> four specimens <strong>of</strong> Anops kingi (Amphisbaenidae) (DELY 1970). The second South American zoological expedition in 1966 to Bolivia brought back 238 specimens <strong>of</strong> amphibians and reptiles. Significant herpetological material arrived from <strong>the</strong> collecting trips by GYÖRGY TOPÁL to Argentina (1961), India (1966–67: 84 specimens, and 1979–80: 143 specimens), and Vietnam (1966). ZOLTÁN KASZAB, coleopterist and director general <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Hungarian Natural <strong>History</strong> Museum added 130 specimens during his Mongolian expeditions. FERENC ZILAHY taxidermist collected 59 specimens in Tunisia. Most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se items, however, have been remaining unidentified in <strong>the</strong> collection until today. In 1973 DELY spent six weeks in Algeria with preparator FERENC ZILAHY on an almost 6,000 km long collecting trip . This expedition ended with a tragic accident, which had an influence on <strong>the</strong> rest <strong>of</strong> DELY’s life. They were chasing jerboas in <strong>the</strong> middle <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> night with a car in <strong>the</strong> desert, when a gunshot accidentally hit his left thigh. Though his leg was saved thanks to his composure and to repeated operations, he never recovered fully, his thighbone broke two times more during his life, and <strong>the</strong> painful vicissitudes escorted him until <strong>the</strong> end <strong>of</strong> his life (DELY 1975b). DELY wrote about <strong>the</strong> incident only tangentially and in an easy way in his expedition report: “…our two-month stay in Algeria was prosperous and successful – apart from <strong>the</strong> sad, but fortunately ending accident – not only to ourselves, but also to <strong>the</strong> Museum.” The collected material lists 232 amphibians and reptiles, 14 birds, 55 mammals and more than 3,500 invertebrates (mainly flies and snails). No scientific paper was published about <strong>the</strong> herpetological procession <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> material. DELY with his wife, ÁGNES DRASKOVITS dipterist went for <strong>the</strong> fourth expedition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> museum to North Korea in June–July <strong>of</strong> 1977 (Fig. 40). This was one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> many expeditions, which grounded <strong>the</strong> fame <strong>of</strong> our Museum with <strong>the</strong>ir huge material collected in East Asia (DELY &DELY-DRASKOVITS 1978). It can be read in <strong>the</strong>ir report that <strong>the</strong>y returned home with 249 amphibian and reptile specimens (and almost 35,000 (!) invertebrate ones, about half <strong>of</strong> which were flies). Out <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> 28 days spent <strong>the</strong>re, 11 were collecting days: <strong>the</strong> usual days around Pyongyang, capital <strong>of</strong> North Korea (163 amphibians + 4 reptiles), <strong>the</strong> ones in <strong>the</strong> Kumgang-san (Diamond Mountains) (48 amphibians + 3 reptiles), and <strong>the</strong>y also managed to get to <strong>the</strong> nor<strong>the</strong>rn, rarely opened high mountain range called Paekdu-san (31 amphibians). Only two <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> subsequent 21 HNHM expeditions got <strong>the</strong>re. One herpetological paper was written as a direct result <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> study <strong>of</strong> Korean lizard specimens (DELY 1981b). It is about <strong>the</strong> diversity <strong>of</strong> Eremias argus; DELY, however, later used <strong>the</strong>se observations for his morphological research about <strong>the</strong> headscale-patterns <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> European lacertid lizards as well. Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 100, 2008
Change language