Coleoptera: Elmidae and Protelmidae

MANFRED A. JAECH, Ph.D. (1983) is scientific curator at the Natural History Museum Vienna, where he built up the world's most important water beetle collection. He has published more than 300 papers, and described about 400 species of water beetles from all over the world. He is the chief editor of Koleopterologische Rundschau (Coleopterological Review) and Monographs on Coleoptera. Three genera and about 100 species of insects (mostly water beetles) have been named after him.

JAN KODADA, Ph.D. (1993) is assistant professor of Zoology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava. He has published numerous articles on water beetles, including the chapter on Elmidae in the Handbook of Zoology, Vol. IV (Part 38), Coleoptera, Beetles (2005).

MICHAELA BROJER, MSc (2008) is assistant curator at the Natural History Museum Vienna. She studied biology at the University of Vienna, specializing in aquatic entomology. She realized fieldwork in Austria and surrounding countries as well as two longer research stays in Central America (Costa Rica and Nicaragua) publishing her results in several publications.

WILLIAM D. SHEPARD Ph.D. (1980) is associate at the Essig Museum of Entomology, University of California, Berkeley. From 1982-2004 he was professor of biology at California State University, Sacramento. He has approximately 75 scientific publications. He has described and named aquatic species in Amphipoda, Hemiptera, Plecoptera and Coleoptera (families Lepiceridae, Elmidae and Psephenidae). Approximately 20 species of aquatic insects in several orders have been named after him.

FEDOR CIAMPOR Jr., Ph.D. (2003) works at the Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded with two fellowships focused on the phylogeny of byrrhoid beetles, and carried out several entomological expeditions, mostly in the tropical regions of South-east Asia and South America. He published more than 40 scientific publications, and described more than 100 species of Elmidae and Dryopidae. He is subject editor for Elmidae and Dryopidae of the journal Zootaxa.