Raymond Robert Forster

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Raymond Robert Forster (1922-2000) was a world renowned spider expert.^[1]

He wrote his first paper on spiders at the age of 17.^[1] He studied at Victoria University.^[1] He was an entomologist at the National Museum in Wellington from 1940 through 1947, with an interruption for military service.^[1]

More than 100 scientific papers and volumes were published bearing his name, including the definitive six-volume Spiders of New Zealand, in co-authorship with international colleagues.^[1] He also published Small Land Animals and co-authored NZ Spiders, An Introduction.^[1]

He researched and classified many of New Zealand's thousands of native spiders.^[1] He set up the Otago Museum's spider collection. ^[1]

In 1961, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and also received the society's highest honors, the Hutton and Hector medals, for outstanding scientific work in biological research.^[1]

In 1984 Dr Forster was recognized for his services to science and museology with a Queen's Service Order, and had earlier received the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal.^[1]

A valley in Fiordland, Forster Burn, is named after him.^[1]

He was survived by a wife, two daughters, and two sons.^[1]