Varga, Zoltan

Zoologist

He was born in 1939 in Debrecen. He has been head of department and university professor at Debrecen University from 1983. He obtained a doctor's degree in biology in 1982. His main fields of research are biogeography and the borderline areas of evolution research, especially zootaxonomy and conservation-biological, population-ecologic and genetic studies. He began to study Lepidoptera, dragonflies and Orthoptera whilst a secondary school student and as university researcher he became interested in the history of the spread of living creatures, especially the issues of evolution genetics. He himself illustrated several of his books and bulletins and has had several individual professional and graphic art exhibitions. Since the 1980's he has been interested in the fauna of arid high mountains, in particular the Noctuidae (he has defined more than 200 new species with his colleagues). He contributed to the establishment of the Aggtelek and Bükk National Parks, the Nature Reserves in Szatmár-Bereg and in the Zemplén and the development of the European NATURA 2000 network of protected areas. He has prepared expert documents related to environment protection for Hungary's accession to the EU and he participated in the discussions. He is the president of the Nature Conservation Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) and a member of the Zoology Committee of MTA and several other domestic and international organisations.

Populations and Genes on the Move