Fauna of New Zealand 72: Micropterigidae (Insecta: Lepidoptera) - Contributor notes
Gibbs, G W 2014. Fauna of New Zealand. 72, 127 pages.
(
ISSN 0111-5383 (print),
ISSN 1179-7193 (online)
;
no.
72.
ISBN 978-0-478-34759-3 (print),
ISBN 978-0-478-34760-9 (online)
).
Published 30 Jun 2014
ZooBank: http://zoobank.org/References/D6BC8C34-6D93-4EC7-BCB3-5670B2CFE744
DOI: 10.7931/J2/FNZ.72
Contributor notes
Contributor George Gibbs is the grandson of George Vernon Hudson (1867–1946), one of New Zealand’s pioneers in the study of the endemic insect fauna, so he had an impeccable background for a career in entomology. He remembers being given store boxes, pins, and setting boards prior to the age of seven years to foster his interest and also partaking in field trips to Hudson’s favourite collecting locations such as Eastbourne’s Butterfly Creek or the Mt Cook alpine region, to see how it was done. Fortunately, the early fascination persisted through a science degree at Victoria University followed by a PhD thesis at Sydney University 1962–65. George’s personal commitment to jaw-moths can be traced back to 1952, when he collected his first specimens of Sabatinca aurella along the Bealey River banks at the age of 14 while on a family holiday to Arthur’s Pass. On his return to an academic post at Victoria University, after an initiation into the discipline of ecology at Sydney, he followed an urge to understand more, not just about the insects themselves but also about the deeper history of the fauna and flora of our South Pacific islands. What better study organisms than the most archaic surviving moths of today? Thus the collection of data on Micropterigidae continued throughout his working life, leading him to other southern hemisphere lands, southern Africa, Australia, New Caledonia and Patagonia, to extend the comparative study of southern micropterigids. His approach is the classical one based on morphology, drawing and photography. Although firmly committed to the enlightenment that comes from molecular biology, he has not personally indulged in this technology, preferring to rely on colleagues who have those skills, especially in this case David Lees of Cambridge University, UK, who continues to collaborate with the jaw-moth work. George accepted partial retirement in 2000, continuing with a summer course until fully retiring from teaching in 2012. His interest in jaw-moths continues, extending to Western Australia, where new discoveries had been revealed as this manuscript was being completed.