Language: Bilingual in English and Hungarian
With nearly 20,000 known species, the darkling beetles (Tenebrionidae) form one of the largest families within the order of beetles (Coleoptera). The Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest houses one of the largest and most complete Tenebrionidae collections of the world, thanks to Zoltán Kaszab (1915-1986), the Museum's former General Director and the most prominent figure of Hungarian coleopterology.
Type specimens constitute the scientifically most valuable assets of the collection. To make them more accessible to the wider coleopterological community the authors here compiled the very first catalogue of these types. The book is also a commemoration of the centenary of Zoltán Kaszab's birthday.
The introduction summarises the history of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, its Coleoptera Collection and the scientific activity of Zoltán Kaszab.
The catalogue contains types of all the species, subspecies, variations and aberrations which have ever been described in the family Tenebrionidae, and kept in the museum in Budapest, including those already assigned to other families, as well as those which were described in different families but are now members of Tenebrionidae. A total of 21,313 type specimens belonging to 5,941 names are listed herein, including 1,222 holotypes, 4 neotypes, 88 lectotypes, 4,914 syntypes, 86 allotypes, 248 paralectotypes and 14,751 paratypes.
The list of the names is followed by a complete list of the 1,212 publications containing the original descriptions.