Otakar Kudrna’s Career in European Butterfly Taxonomy and Conservation

Otakar Kudrna devoted much of his life to the study of European butterflies, moving from taxonomic work on individual genera to regional surveys, reference books and conservation projects. Born in České Budějovice in 1939, he experienced the upheavals that followed the dissolution of Austro-Hungarian rule in the city: German occupation from 1939 to 1945, the horrors of the Second World War, and the post-war deportation of the city’s German-speaking inhabitants. His own family was affected by political upheaval after the establishment of the communist regime.

His father, apparently a medical doctor, fell into disgrace, and Kudrna used the short opening of the Prague Spring to flee to England. He later recalled leaving with a bag containing only two books on butterflies. After becoming a British citizen, Kudrna completed a master’s degree at Cambridge, where his thesis was developed under the guidance of Brisbane Charles Somerville Warren, whose work on the genus Erebia was particularly remembered.

The thesis provided the basis for Kudrna’s revision of the genus Hipparchia, published by E. W. Classey in 1977.

Kudrna’s later work showed how taxonomic conclusions could emerge from the comparison of specimens collected in different places and from the study of features that were not obvious in external appearance alone. One example arose in 1975, when Giorgio Leigheb collected specimens from a group of Hippparchia on the Aeolian Islands whose wing morphology and behavior appeared unusual to him. He sent the material to Kudrna for examination of the genitalia.

Kudrna responded that it was a new species, which he subsequently named Hipparchia leighebi in 1976. The episode illustrates the combination of field observation, specimen study and formal taxonomic analysis in Kudrna’s work. It also connected him closely with Leigheb, one of the colleagues who later recalled his life in a memorial account.

His interest in the collection of Italian lepidopterist Roger Verity developed after he met Leigheb in Turin in the early 1970s and was shown the five volumes of Farfalle diurne d’Italia. Beginning in about 1976, he made several visits to La Specola in Florence with support from small grants awarded by British societies. There, he selected Verity’s type material carefully and re-boxed it as a separate collection.

Kudrna continued returning to Italy after his Florentine period, staying in Novara, at Leigheb’s house on Lake Orta, or in Genoa with Emilio Balletto. The authors of the memorial regarded these repeated visits as probably the happiest period of his life. Kudrna accompanied Leigheb on field visits to habitats in which he wanted to observe particular butterflies.

These included the rice paddies around Novara, where Lycaena dispar was to be photographed; the heaths of the Piano Rosa, where Coenonympha oedippus remained abundant; the alluvial soils along the lower Sesia River, densely populated at the time by Zerynthia polyxena; the steep slopes of Mount Kastel, where Erebia flavofasciata was sought; and the Laquinthal Alps, where Erebia christi was photographed. The account describes these journeys as physically demanding for Kudrna, but says that he continued with determination and satisfaction. The visits allowed him to see the habitats and living butterflies associated with the specimens and regions central to his work.

Kudrna was a founding member of the Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica and served as editor of its journal, Nota Lepidopterologica, from 1977 to 1980. At La Specola, he prompted Emilio Balletto to become a society member in 1976 and encouraged him to attend the organization’s first congress in Paris in 1978. Kudrna left the editorial position after a series of disagreements, which the memorial does not detail.

A lasting friendship with Balletto and Leigheb continued through frequent correspondence and shared excursions. The memorial also recalls that Warren’s death in 1979 left Kudrna less happy in Britain and contributed to his eventual decision to settle in Germany. In Germany, Kudrna obtained citizenship and secured recognition of his medical degree.

He had already been working on projects connected with the Alexander Koenig Museum in Bonn, where a curator position became available. He applied for it, but it went to someone else, and he subsequently lost a grant he had held with the museum for several years. He then came to Genoa for two visiting appointments, teaching a conservation biology course at the local university during 1983–84 and 1984–85.

A small University of Catania grant supported monitoring of butterflies on the Aeolian Islands, and he also visited Sardinia a few years later. These activities added field monitoring to his taxonomic career and placed him in direct contact with butterfly populations in Mediterranean environments. Kudrna’s publishing plans included an eight-volume work on the butterflies of Europe, for which he was editor.

Only three parts appeared between 1985 and 1990, and the planned taxonomic volumes were not published because of difficulties involving the publisher and its new management. The second volume, Introduction to Lepidopterology, was written in the form of separate articles; the memorial notes that the chapters were not all of the same level. The eighth volume, written entirely by Kudrna and titled Aspects of the Conservation of Butterflies in Europe, introduced several indices, including a Range Affinity Index for evaluating how strongly a species could be regarded as European and therefore relevant to conservation in Europe.

Chris van Swaay and Martin Warren later adopted the index when compiling the first Red Data Book of European Butterflies. After the eight-volume project folded, Kudrna turned to an atlas of European butterfly distributions. Three updated editions appeared in 2002, 2011 and 2019, each adding revisions and clarifications to the mapped information.

The final edition, Distribution of Butterflies and Skippers in Europe, was sent to Balletto and Leigheb as a Christmas gift shortly before Kudrna’s death. The authors said that he was very proud of the atlas. The three editions also document the continuing development of his distribution work, although the memorial does not provide quantitative estimates of the atlas’s coverage or changes in species ranges.

Balletto and Leigheb described Kudrna as sometimes a very difficult person, and said they had told him several times that he was his own worst enemy. They nevertheless connected this aspect of his temperament with the psychological strain of leaving occupied Czechoslovakia, separating from family, losing his possessions and spending years away from his roots while seeking acceptance in England and Germany. His employment and financial circumstances were often uncertain, and professional disagreements contributed to the tensions surrounding his career.

The memorial presents these factors as partial explanations rather than excuses, while acknowledging the depth of the friendship shared with him. His work, as summarized by the authors, included taxonomic revisions, the description of Hipparchia leighebi, work on museum type material, butterfly monitoring, conservation writing and three editions of a European distribution atlas.

Subject of Research: Otakar Kudrna’s work on European butterfly taxonomy, distribution and conservation.

Article Title: Otakar Kudrna 1939–2021

Article References: Balletto, E., & Leigheb, G. (2021). Otakar Kudrna 1939–2021. Nota Lepidopterologica, 44, 133-140. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.44.67734

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/nl.44.67734

Keywords: Otakar Kudrna, European butterflies, Lepidoptera, taxonomy, conservation biology, distribution atlas, museum collections, Range Affinity Index, Hipparchia, field monitoring, Otakar, Kudrna