Jan Knoz (1931–2014) was a known authority in black fly studies in Central Europe. However, the period he has been engaged in black fly research was relatively short – he published his main simuliological papers in the sixtieths of the past century, more particularly between the years 1960–1965, when he published his most eminent papers including description of seven species (four considered as valid at present). After his most comprehensive work (1965) was published, as he expressed himself, all was done in black fly studies in Czechoslovakia and he switched to studies of Ceratopogonidaea. Later he returned to black flies occasionally only, mainly with his students in papers on the distribution and local faunas of different parts of Czech Republic, a few papers on karyotaxonomy (two with Chubareva), serotaxonomy and neural structure of larvae. His chapter on black flies in a book on bloodsucking Diptera published in the series Fauna of Czechoslovakia (1980, edited by Chvála) was adapted Czech translation of his 1965 work with some additions. His next come back to black flies was the checklist of Czechoslovakia – first (1986) as single author, in later versions (1996, 2006, 2009) as author responsible for the Czech Republic.

The distance between Brno and Bratislava is negligible, 135 km and one (Schengen) border. Despite of this, these unfortunate news took one year to overcome it. Join us in paying him a silent tribute.

Sincerely,

L. Jedlička

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