FNZ 48 - Scaphidiinae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) - Contributor notes
Löbl, I; Leschen, RAB 2003. Scaphidiinae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Staphylinidae). Fauna of New Zealand 48, 94 pages.
(
ISSN 0111-5383 (print),
;
no.
48.
ISBN 0-478-09353-5 (print),
).
Published 18 Nov 2003
ZooBank: http://zoobank.org/References/FDA38B33-D656-46CB-9406-CA03D26DC811
Contributor notes
Contributor Ivan Löbl was born in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. As a child he became interested in biology and during his early teenage years started to rear and collect insects; in particular, Orthoptera, beetles, and butterflies. During his college studies he concentrated on beetles and collected and identified members of all families present in Slovakia, focussing on carabids and staphylinoids. In the 1950s and early 60s he and his family, like many other people in the former Czechoslovakia, suffered severe political repression. Entomology not only gave him pleasure by new findings and knowledge about natural history, but also mental escape from daily problems and hardships. After several years of manual work in the textile and chemical industry, as a technician at a small regional museum, and time spent in the military service, he finally had the opportunity to pursue his academic studies. While a university student working on a PhD (Komenius University, Bratislava), he also worked as assistant in the Department of Entomology at the National Museum of Slovakia and focussed on Scaphidiinae. A few weeks after completing his PhD he left Slovakia for Switzerland where he was offered a position as research officer and eventually served as head of the Department of Entomology at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle (Museum of Natural History) in Geneva. Ivan considered curatorial work very important and spent most of his professional and much of his free time working with insect collections; as a result there is a well-curated beetle collection present at the museum in Geneva. He has published over 200 papers and this work was facilitated by visits to university and museum insect collections throughout Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia. He has made extensive collection trips to 24 countries ranging from Canada to New Caledonia and from Nepal to Lombok, and has sampled an impressive number of species of arthropods (there are many epithets bearing Ivan’s name). Some of the specimens he collected are, sadly, from areas where much of the habitat has disappeared due to destructive human activity, and the collections made from many of the forests in the Himalayas and Ivory Coast serve as unique reminders of destroyed ecosystems. Since retirement, Ivan continues to work on the taxonomy of staphylinids (subfamilies Scaphidiinae and Pselaphinae) and on the Catalogue of the Palaearctic Coleoptera.
Contributor Rich Leschen was born in Newport, Arkansas, and grew up in St Louis, Missouri. From his early years he has been interested in paleontology and herpetology, and when very young spent hours tracing the arthropods featured in Libby Hyman’s famous treatise on invertebrates. Though interested in many subjects, ranging from science fiction to music (as a kid he read Larry Niven and as a teenager he became a Grateful Dead fan), his family always thought he would eventually have a professional title ending with -ologist! He decided to make a career in science and became interested in beetles, which is not fiction. While a Masters student studying fungus beetles at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville), Rich collected Scaphidiinae and described the larva of Scaphisoma punctatum. A mutual friend and amateur beetle collector, Karl Stephan (Red Oak, Oklahoma), suggested Rich contact Ivan Lōbl regarding his interests, and the three of them eventually published a review of Scaphisoma occurring in the Ozark region of the United States. Ivan and Rich met at the 1988 International Congress of Entomology (Vancouver, Canada) and every evening retired to the beer tent to discuss beetles, beetle specialists, and other fine things in life. Rich recalls that he had a lump in his throat when they said goodbye at the conference and knew he had made a friend for life. Their meeting began a long-term collaboration and they continue to work on the phylogenetic relationships of the Scaphidiinae. Though systematics research is declining and seems to be under threat almost everywhere, including New Zealand, Rich continues his work on world Coleoptera and has published over 70 papers, many of the important studies being on higher classification and evolution of Staphylinoidea and Cucujoidea and placing New Zealand beetle fauna in a global context. He invests much of his time promoting systematics and entomology through his work, and presently serves as science editor of the New Zealand Entomologist, is co-editor of the Handbook of Zoology on Coleoptera (with Rolf Beutel, Hamburg, Germany), and is Vice-President of the New Zealand Entomological Society. With Guilio Cuccodoro, he has also edited a Festschrift dedicated to Ivan. As a pastime, Rich plays guitar and mandolin and divides his interests between Classical North Indian music and traditional American Bluegrass; two very different musical forms rooted in history and needing safe haven from pop culture. He remains a loyal Grateful Dead fan.