Kálmán Kittenberger ( Léva, 10 October 1881 -

Nagymaros Nagymaros (, ) is a town in Pest county, Hungary. Etymology The name comes from ''Maroš'', the Slavic form of Marianus. Nagymaros—"Greater Maros" ( Hungarian). The first written mention is ''Morus'' (1257). Notable people * György Szabado ...

, 4 January 1958) was an

Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

traveller,

natural historian Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and collector. He was born in Léva, now in

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

(''Levice''). He made six travels to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, the first time in 1902, where he was accompanying a wealthy nobleman on a hunting trip and supported by the

Hungarian National Museum The Hungarian National Museum (, ) was founded in 1802 and is the national museum for the history, art, and archaeology of Hungary, including areas not within Hungary's modern borders, such as Transylvania; it is separate to the collection of int ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. He spent a total of 16 years in Africa on 6 occasions. During his journeys he faced financial difficulties as he received no sponsorship, but he was still able to grant 60,000 items to the biological collections of the Hungarian National Museum, including 300 new animal species. (Almost 40 of them were named after Kittenberger, including '' Pachyonomastus kittenbergeri'') Part of that collection was annihilated by a fire in 1956. On museum specimen labels his name has been altered by a department head against his will to Katona. Many of the taxonomic names dedicated to him are using this

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

e.g. Brachiopterna katonae or the genus Katonaia.

Selected works

* Vadász- és gyűjtőúton Kelet-Afrikában (''Hunting and collecting in East-Africa'', 1927,

) * A megváltozott Afrika (''Changed Africa'', 1930, Budapest) * Kelet-Afrika vadonjaiban (''In the wilderness of East-Africa'', 1955, Budapest) * A Kilimandzsárótól Nagymarosig (''From the Kilimanjaro to Nagymaros'', 1956, Budapest) * Vadászkalandok Afrikában (''Hunting adventures in Africa'', 1957, Budapest)

References

1881 births 1958 deaths People from Levice Hungarian biologists Hungarian scientists Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery 20th-century Hungarian biologists {{Hungary-scientist-stub