Dvorní rada Julius Frieser (1843–1908) a identifikace minerálů z jeho sbírky ve sbírce Národního muzea v Praze

Julius Frieser (1843–1908) was a prominent mineral collector who contributed to the research of minerals of the Bohemian Central Mountains, especially zeolites. He personally discovered a new mesolite mineral site in Bedřichov near Benešov nad Ploučnicí. He was known among professional mineralogists from Prague and Vienna, as well as among other collectors of minerals, and was a member of the Litoměřice mineral collectors‘ club, which organized regular mineral exchanges in Litoměřice around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, visited by famous geologists and mineralogists. He built a large systematic collection of minerals from around the world, which included about four thousand items and 350 species. After his death, the collection, or part of it, was acquired by the collector Julia Schildbach from Mariánské Lázně. Her collection was acquired by the National Museum, Prague in 1946. Among Schildbach‘s minerals, 854 items originally from Frieser have currently been identified.

O posmrtné historii mozku historika a politika Františka Palackého

František Palacký (1798–1876), a historian and politician, was one of the most eminent personalities of the Czech society of the 19th century. He died on 26 May 1876 in Prague and on 30 May 1876, in the evening before the burial, the Palacký’s head was dissected and his brain was extracted and preserved as a liquid preparation. Then, it was deposited in the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia (present National Museum) in Prague; currently it is stored in a jar concealed in a wall niche of a column (next to a large statue of Palacký) in the Pantheon hall of the historical building of the National Museum on the Wenceslaus square in Prague. The investigation of the Museum archive brought some documents which elucidate certain parts of the history of the Palacký’s brain preparation, although its whereabouts during other periods still remain hidden. For several years after its extraction, the Palacký’s brain was deposited in the Museum library, and between the years 1878–1899 (most probably in 1892 at the latest), it was handed over to the Department of Zoology of the Museum, where it remained until 1931. Next fate of the brain is uncertain until 1958, when it was installed in the wall niche in the Pantheon hall, where it remains till now (with an interruption in the last five years), but again under the responsibility of the Department of Zoology and Department of Anthropology, respectively.

A finding of Eptesicus gobiensis in an ancient salt mine in Iran and notes on the status of this bat in the Middle East (Mammalia: Chiroptera)

Two mummified bats were found in an ancient salt mine near Chehrabad, NW Iran. One complete and one partial skeletons, both associated with parts of the pelage, were identified as Eptesicus gobiensis, a bat species rare in the Middle East. The comparison of skull and statistical evaluation of craniodental data showed this bat to belong to the identical taxon as the mummified bats previously collected in Qutur Su caves, NW Iran; this part of Iran is thus an area of broader distribution of this bat, the second record reported here confirms its preference for dry upper plateaus. This Iranian population exhibits much similarity with E. gobiensis bobrinskoi living in lowland deserts of Kazakhstan, but it simultaneously shows morphological and ecological differences from the Kazakhstani populations. Therefore, the population of Iran is here tentatively identified as E. g. cf. bobrinskoi. The species rank of E. gobiensis was found to be composed of three morphotypes living in three separate ranges, E. g. gobiensis in mountain plateaus of Central Asia, E. g. bobrinskoi in lowlands of Kazakhstan, and E. g. cf. bobrinskoi in NW Iran. However, the phylogenetic and taxonomic statuses of the Iranian morphotype still remain to be elicudated.

Anthropological research into a family tomb from Vetlá cemetery (Bohemia, 19th–20th centuries), with a focus on the morphological similarity of biologically related individuals.

In common osteological practice, there are few opportunities to verify the relationship between morphological similarity and the biological relatedness of individuals. This contribution expands knowledge in this area based on research into a family tomb from Vetlá (Bohemia, 19th–20th centuries), where 131 non-metric cranial traits were monitored in 7 skulls and the degree of similarity between individuals was calculated using a similarity coefficient. Trait frequencies were evaluated within the family and compared to a reference sample. Due to the small number of individuals statistical methods were not applied, and the authors focused on graphical representation of the results. It was confirmed that a positive relationship between the degree of similarity of individuals and their degree of relatedness is visible. At the same time, in the group of biologically related individuals a greater similarity and a lower degree of its variability was apparent than in unrelated individuals. The average frequency of all the evaluated traits together also appears to be higher in the family sample than in the reference sample. In addition, several individual traits were found to support the documented kinship of individuals, not only on the skulls but also on the scapula.

Catalogue of the millipedes (Diplopoda) in Miller’s collection (Department of Zoology, National Museum, Prague, Czechia), part 2

The present catalogue completes (as the second of the two parts) data for the millipede collection of Czech arachnologist František Miller (1902–1983), housed in the National Museum in Prague. This second part of the catalogue brings information on a total of 341 specimens belonging to 34 millipede species; these specimens were previously housed at Charles University in Prague, and later moved to the National Museum. The material was collected during 1927–1950 in the territory of modern-day Czechia and Slovakia. Chelogona carpathicum, Polydesmus tatranus and Trachysphaera acutula are species of special importance for Slovak faunistics, due to their endemic occurrence. Glomeris klugii is the first record for Slovakia. For Leptoiulus noricus and Polydesmus inconstans, these are chronologically the oldest records from the territory of Slovakia.

One night in San Marino

During several hours of acoustic survey of bats in Borgo Maggiore, San Marino, on 30 August 2020, foraging activity of at least six bat species was recorded. Five of them (Eptesicus serotinus, Hypsugo savii, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, P. kuhlii, and Tadarida teniotis) are common and widespread across the Apennine Peninsula and are already known members of the bat fauna of San Marino. The sixth species, Nyctalus noctula, is here reported from this country for the first time and the bat fauna of San Marino increases to 18 species.