John Tunney (naturalist)

Tunney preparing specimens on the northern Australian expedition

John Thomas Tunney (1871-1929) was a naturalist and collector of animal specimens, active in the West and North of Australia.

Tunney's collecting for the Western Australian Museum began in 1895 and continued for almost twenty years. The museum's taxidermist, O. Lipfert, taught him the art of preserving skins of mammals and birds for their collection. He also was commissioned to supply specimens of moths and butterflies for Nathan Rothschild at the Tring Museum and Syphonaptera to an authority on fleas, Victor Rothschild. Tunney's first expeditions were to the Southwest of the state, later traveling to the Northwest, Kimberley region, and across the North to Arnhem Land. Many of the specimens he collected were unknown to science,^[1] and his name was commemorated in some of the descriptions by the ornithologist G. M. Mathews.

Tunney was born 11 October 1871 in Kojonup, Western Australia and educated in Albany. He worked for the Post Office as a messenger, in a construction gang, and joined survey parties operating in remote regions of the state. He died near Kojonup on 10 June 1929.^[2]

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