Anthony Whitaker

Anthony Hume Whitaker, MNZM (5 September 1944 – 20 February 2014) was a New Zealand herpetologist, contributing a fifty year career of fieldwork, pioneering research and species discoveries, and was appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2010 for services to herpetology.[1] His is still the largest collection of reptile and amphibian specimens donated to Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.[2]

Biography

Anthony was born in Chesterfield, UK, on 5 September 1944 and emigrated to New Zealand with his family in 1951.[3] He grew up in Upper Hutt, attending Silverstream College and later gaining his Bachelor of Science degree majoring in zoology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1966. He married and fathered two children, Kim and Mike, and lived in Motueka for much of his life.[1] Tony died from a heart attack while mountain-biking near Motueka on 20 February 2014.[4]

Herpetology work

Anthony's passion for reptiles was evident from an early age, collecting early specimens of skink while growing up in Upper Hutt. While on a family holiday in the Marlborough Sounds, the twelve-year-old Anthony had gone out to look for geckos. Upon learning of his interest, a publican in Saint Arnaud gave him a jar of geckos pickled in vodka.[1]

In 1966 he joined the Ecology Division of the DSIR, New Zealand's main scientific research institute at the time, as a lab technician and later research scientist, specialising in reptiles. By the time he left in 1977, the department's collection had grown to over 2000 specimens and was donated to the New Zealand national museum. Anthony helped found the Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand in 1987 and was a long-serving editor of its journal, SRARNZ Notes.

Both Anthony himself and his distinguished work over many decades were widely respected by New Zealand ecologists and biologists. He produced about 230 published papers and scientific and conservation reports, mentored many in the field and was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2010. He remarked at the time that one of his greatest achievements had been to recognise early on the predatory threat that rats pose to native reptile species, confirmed by later research and pest eradication programmes.[5]

He has one species of skink named after him, the Whitaker's skink, and himself named one species, the black-eyed gecko. In addition, his specimen collection has provided holotypes for several other species, including the skinks Oligosoma chloronoton, O. stenotis, O. longipes, and O. townsi.

Bibliography

Non-fiction books

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Colin Miskelly (28 February 2014). "Anthony Hume Whitaker, MNZM (1944–2014) – a tribute". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  2. ↑ Colin Miskelly (2 May 2012). "A gift of lizards – 35 years to completion". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  3. ↑ Bell, Ben D. (2014). "Anthony Hume Whitaker, MNZM". Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand (Informa UK) 44 (2–3): 57–60. doi:10.1080/03036758.2014.926944. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
  4. ↑ "Renowned scientist dies suddenly". Nelson Mail (Nelson, New Zealand). 27 February 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  5. ↑ Whitaker, A. (1973). "Lizard populations on islands with and without Polynesian rats, Rattus exulans (Peale)". Proceedings of the New Zealand Ecological Society (New Zealand Ecological Society) 20: 121–130. Retrieved 2014-12-27.