Walter Heinz was born on August 8, 1925 in Ludwigshafen. He spent his childhood in Frankfurt am Main, where he went to the Holzhausenschule primary school from 1931 and to the KaiserWilhelmGymnasium from 1935, obtaining his final diploma (Abitur) in 1942. Already in these younger years he was fascinated by entomology, started collecting Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, and regularly visited the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. In his leisure time he joined a civil gliding group, receiving his pilot's license. From 1943, during the Second World War, Walter was a transport pilot in the air force. His first entomological collections, kept in the home of his parents, were destroyed during that time.

From November 1945 he studied at the Technical University of Darmstadt, with a focus on construction and statics, and received his engineering diploma in 1950. After that, he joined an engineering company in Mainz and later managed its branch in Mannheim. Walter married Ortrud Göpelt (*June 1935) in 1953. Together they built a house in Wilhelmsfeld, near Heidelberg, and about ten years later they built a larger one in WaldMichelbach (Odenwald). They had six children: Ulrich (*1955), Ursula (*1957), Hannelore (*1959), Dietrich (*1961), Gisela (*1964) and Gudrun (*1972). Walter loved classical music and learned the piano already during his school years; all of his children received an education with musical instruments, and the sounds of a flute, violin, guitar or piano could always be heard from the various rooms of the house. In 1994, once their children had all left home, the couple decided to move into a smaller house in Schwanfeld, near Schweinfurt.

Walter Heinz collected beetles outside of Europe for the first time in 1971, when he drove to Turkey with the whole family. In the following years they reached also Iran by car, with a focus on Carabus Linnaeus. In 1979 came his first travels by plane, to the Himalayas of northern Pakistan, with his indestructible wife, and from 1990 to Mexico, to collect Calosoma Weber. In the winter of 1996/1997 they travelled for the first time to Africa (Kenya, South Africa) to hunt species of Anthia Weber. The first visit by the Heinz couple to Argentina and Chile, in search of Ceroglossus Solier, was conducted in 1998. On all these travels, Walter drove rental cars over long distances and on difficult routes, whereas Ortrud has no driver's license. The last travels led Walter and Ortrud to Georgia in the Caucasus, in the summers of 2018 and 2019, where they travelled with local driver and guide Nika (known also to other entomologists). By that time, Walter was already 94 years old, Ortrud 84, and they had collected beetles for almost 70 years. In several publications, Ortrud offered vivid recollections of their joint travel adventures (see Publications of Ortrud Heinz, below).

Walter's favourite collecting method was to set ground traps with a mixture of red wine and vinegar, always with the indefatigable support of his wife. Unfortunately, the pair did not practise sifting. They collected not only Carabidae but also several other insect and arachnid groups, for example Opiliones. He presented them to other scientists, not only in the hope of getting carabids in exchange, but to generously support other colleagues. So the present author regularly received the collected Tenebrionidae.

Walter had never studied biology, but he attended some zoology lectures at university in Frankfurt. He had an extensive knowledge of biological relations and ecological features. Before every travel he searched on maps and in other files for isolated forest remnants and other interesting habitats, for example in Turkey as well as in Chile, where he hoped to find particular taxa. He also tried to collect at the type localities of particular carabids. And he bought a strong and large vehicle (a modified Unimog) at the beginning of his collecting activities, to reach remote and offroad habitats together with his family. After persistent and courageous fighting with local authorities, Walter even reached restricted areas in northern Pakistan or in Nagorny Karabach in the Caucasus. We once spoke about a visit to St. Helena, a remote island in the southern Atlantic Ocean with a highly endemic fauna and flora. The island can be reached by ship from South Africa, but the connection is quite insecure and dependent on weather conditions. In the end, Walter renounced this plan, because the risk of staying stuck for weeks on St. Helena was too high.

The author first met Walter Heinz and his wife Ortrud in 1978 during the German Coleoptera Meeting in Ludwigsburg and then regularly at these annual meetings, now held in Beutelsbach. Their last presence at the Beutelsbach meeting was in 2019. The meeting was cancelled the following two years because of COVID19 restrictions. After our first meeting, I immediately recognised the couple as highly engaged coleopterists and tough collectors. I visited them for the first time in their home in Wald-Michelbach 1984, and admired their collection. Subsequently, I enjoyed their hospitality several times in Schwanfeld, when organising the transfer of their collection to the natural history museum in Stuttgart.

Fig. 1.

Walter Heinz in 1984 (right) during the Coleoptera Meeting in Ludwigsburg, together with German writer Ernst Jünger. (Photo by unknown author)

The outstanding carabid collection of Walter Heinz is arranged in 220 large and 400 small drawers, and contains about 150,000 specimens, all accurately prepared and labelled and sorted both systematically and geographically. The collection was transferred to the Staatliches Museum in Stuttgart in 2007–2010 in four parts, with the support of funds from the “Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Naturkundemuseums”. Subsequently, Heinz delivered several additional drawers and unprepared material as an “addendum”, which consisted not only of Carabidae. Duplicates were also delivered to the natural history museum of Erfurt, Germany. The collection contains all groups of Carabidae from the world over, with only the cavernicolous Trechinae less represented. Heinz loaned his newly collected specimens to international taxonomists for study and publication; therefore, the collection is full of the type material of taxa described several authors, besides that resulting from his own studies (see Publications of Walter Heinz, below). And he always engaged with others to enlarge the collection through exchanges. Even in his last few years, when he was no longer able to travel, Walter established new contacts with coleopterologists for the exchange of carabids from Central Asia.

Walter and Ortrud were passionate travellers interested not only in beetles but also in history, geography, languages and the general ways of life in the visited countries. In particular, Walter studied the origin of the Farsi, Turkish and Arabic languages, supported by his daughter Ursula, who married in Iran. Besides collection work, Walter also spent a lot of time reading the entomological literature. He preferred a simple life and was as much as possible a selfsupplier. Until recently the couple cultivated vegetables in their garden, and in their earlier years in WaldMichelbach they even kept sheep. In winter the heating was kept low, and during travels they prepared simple meals for themselves, avoiding restaurants. He was always hard on himself, at home and on his travels, but sometimes also on others.

In the final weeks of last year, Walter's heart lost its power bit by bit and he died peacefully after a fulfilled life of 97 years on January 3, 2023, with his wife by his side in their Schwanfeld house. Walter leaves behind not only his wife Ortrud and their large family, but also a large international community of coleopterists. His carabid collection remains as his monument.

List of collecting travels of Ortrud and Walter Heinz

1952–1970 France, Pyrenees, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Canary Islands (multiple times)

Fig. 2.

Walter Heinz collecting in remote areas of Iran with his offroad vehicle in 1976, together with his family. (Photo by Heinz family, reproduced with permission)

Fig. 3.

Walter Heinz together with his wife Ortrud in 1995, in the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau. (Photo by Heinz family, reproduced with permission)

Taxa dedicated to Walter and/or Ortrud Heinz

Cicindela ismenia walterheinzi Franzen – Carabus heinzi Breuning – Ceroglossus darwini heinzi Jaffrézic & Rataj – Ceroglossus magellanicus ortrudheinzae Heinz & Jiroux – Nebria heinzi Jedlička – Nebria pharina walteriana Ledoux & Roux – Leistus heinzi Farkač – Bembidion heinzi Korge – Trechus heinzi Pawlowski – Duvalius heinzi Casale & Giachino – Deltomerus heinzi Zamotajlov – Amara walterheinzi Hieke – Zabrus heinzi Jedlička – Amolopsa heinzi Straneo –Pterostichus (Haplomaseus) heinzi Jedlička – Pterostichus sousae heinzi Kirschenhofer – Tapinopterus heinzi Straneo – Calathus heinzi Jedlička – Sphodropsis heinzi Casale – Laemosthenus heinzi Casale – Ophonus heinzi Wrase – Bradycellus heinzi Jäger – Cymindis (Tarulus) heinzi Jedlička – Otiorhynchus heinzianus Braun – Otiorhynchus heinzi Smreczynski – Otiorhynchus heinzorum Braun – Otiorhynchus ortrudheinzi Braun – Sphingorhinotus ortrudheinzae Braun – Lathrotiorhynchus heinzi Braun – Chilotrogus heinzi Keith – Panotrogus heinzi Keith – Cerambyx heinzianus Demelt – Mallosia heinzorum Holzschuh – Dorcadion heinzi Breuning – Dorcadion heinzorum Braun – Dorcadion walteri Holzschuh – Dorcadion ortrudae Braun – Dorcadion ortrudheinzae Danilevsky – Pakapsidia heinzi Wittmer – Ocypus heinzi Smetana – Lathrobium heinzi Korge – Heinzia variabilis Korge – Quedius walteri Korge – Quedius heinzi Korge – Quedius ortrudae Korge – Scopaeus heinzi Korge – Stenus heinzianus Puthz – Dianous heinzi Korge – Laena heinzi Schawaller – Rybinskiella heinzi Frank – Apteroloma heinzi Schawaller – Smaragdina viridana heinzi Erber & Medvedev – Labidostomis heinzi Lopatin – Tenthredo heinzi Muche – Aeolothrips heinzi zur Strassen – Kashmirobroscus ortrudae Schmidt, Wrase & Skiacy.

Fig. 4.

Walter Heinz in 2005, checking ground traps in Nothophagus forests in Chile. (Photo by Heinz family, reproduced with permission)