driftnet in 1979, in the aquatorium between the islands of Rab, Laganj and Pag, his team recovered a molar and a diaphysis of the femur of a fossil elephant. Malez, in cooperation with Gernot Rabeder, studied the fauna of mammals from bone breccias, from the Podumci 1 site, dated mostly to lower Pleistocene. The data from that study, and a stratigraphic analysis of the fauna, enabled the authors to reconstruct the evolutionary lines of the families Episoriculus, Microtus, Pliomys, Lagurus and Dinaromys. Three new species were determined: Episoriculus thenii, Reteliomys podumcensis, Microtus thenii and a subspecies Lagurus arankae podumcensis. Malez participated in the editorial team publishing the monograph project "The Prehistory of the Yugoslav Countries". Further, in a few articles he analysed pathological transformations on the bones of cave bear remains, in cooperation with Nikolić and the Institute for Anatomy of the faculty for Medicine at the University of Zagreb. A controversy related to Malez emerged in 1990, when he wrote in an article "80 years of organised speleological research in Croatia", that organised speleological research in Croatia begins with establishing the "Committee for cave research" within the Geological Commission of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia in 1910. In Malez's article there was no mention of the "hiking sections", other departments, or the famous KSPSH (Commission for Speleology, Mountain Association of Croatia). It was quite controversial for Malez to mention only the state institutions and some companies related to speleological activities. However, Malez's omission was probably a reflection of the confusing social and political situation at that time in Croatia, and among its academic population. He was an honorary member of the Speleological society of Croatia, the Croatian Geological Survey, the Croatian Natural History Society, the Croatian Anthropological Society and the Croatian Geographic Society. As an active member he participated in the work of the Deutsche Quartarvereinigung, Hugo Obermeier Gesellschaft, the Paleontological Association and others. Malez was a great admirer of nature and a persistent supporter of nature conservation and protection initiatives. A pioneer of Croatian speleoarchaeology Prominent Croatian archaeologists were part of Malez's team of explorers, particularly in Lika. As a result of his stratigraphic, palaeontological, palaeoanthropological, palaeoclimatic, and archaeological documentation, there is greater understanding of culture from the Old Stone Age to the Middle Ages. Changes in the ecosystem (flora, fauna), the types of climatic periods, and the first groups of fossil people, i.e. their material culture,