Biographies of the Entomologists of the World details

Date of birth: 1881-00-00

Date of death: 1953-00-00

Gender: male

Remark: Eng. Oskar SCHEIBEL (1881-1953), the author of different contributions on cave-dwelling and endogaean Coleoptera of Dalmatia, lived in Zagreb between the wars. Austrian, by profession a construction engineer, he came to Bosnia at the beginning of the Century to work in railway construction. Like some of his compatriots who served in this part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, he also became interested in insect fauna. Ha was particularly attracted by cave-dwelling Coleoptera and discovered new species, described mainly by APFELBECK in 1920 (Chawnites scheibeli) and by JEANNEL in 1924 (Antroherpon erebus scheibeli). During his stay in Bosnia, he established a large collection of Coleoptera in which the fauna of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Croatia were represented. In 1921 in entomological Journals he offered this collection for sale for the sum of 6.000 dinars (Fig. 33). The collection included 15.000 specimens belonging to 6.000 species. The cave-dwelling fauna was represented with 200 species, including some types. At the same time he offered to sell doublets and entomological literature naming the little town of Vardiste in Eastern Bosnia as his address. Through the Offices of Albert WINKLER's entomological trade house, this collection was sold in Germany (HÖRN & KAHLE, 1935-1937). SCHEIBEL owned the exclusive Yugoslav rights to the Swiss Company "SIM", producer of pistons and other spare motor parts. This was located in Ilica street in Zagreb in the thirties and provided him with a discrete income. Due to heart disease he was not able to continue his earlier research activities but was willing to give financial support to any entomologist exploring cave fauna. In return, he asked to study the collected material if it included specimens of the Trechiinae beetle, the only insect group in which he was interested and to keep half for his collection. Egon PRETNER worked for a while as a clerk in his shop. SCHEIBEL's financial support enabled the author of this book, during his stay at the Zagreb University between 1932 and 1934, to explore caves and to investigate the endogaean Coleoptera in Slovenia, Croatia and Western Bosnia. As a result, from the Quarner and continental part of Croatia is also illustrated by the fact that this fauna is very poorly represented in the collections of the Croatian National Zoological Museum in Zagreb. In 1920 this was referred to by Prof. LANGHOFFER in a letter to Petar NOVAK in Split in which he asks for material needed to enrich the Museum collections. (Nonveiller 1999)

Specialisms: Coleoptera; hölenlebende Insekten

Collection: I. Sammlung europäischer Coleoptera (spez. Dalmatien, Kroatien und Bosnien) ca. 1926 via A. Winkler an O. Wohlberedt (Triebes und Jena); II. Sammlung Coleoptera an Museum G. Frey/Tutzing, jetzt Naturhistorisches Museum Basel.

Updated: 2017-08-22 08:56:52

Data recorder: Eckhard K. Groll