Anthony Whitaker
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Anthony Whitaker MNZM |
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| Born | Anthony Hume Whitaker 5 September 1944 Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England |
| Died | 20 February 2014 (aged 69) Orinoco, Tasman District, New Zealand |
| Fields | Herpetology |
| Institutions | DSIR |
| Alma mater | Victoria University of Wellington |
Anthony Hume "Tony" Whitaker MNZM (5 September 1944 – 20 February 2014) was a New Zealand herpetologist, contributing a 50-year career of fieldwork, pioneering research and species discoveries. His is still the largest collection of reptile and amphibian specimens donated to Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, on 5 September 1944, Whitaker emigrated to New Zealand with his family in 1951, and became a naturalised New Zealander in 1976. He grew up in Upper Hutt, attending St. Patrick's College, Silverstream, and later gaining his Bachelor of Science degree majoring in zoology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1966. He married and fathered two children, and lived in Motueka for much of his life. Whitaker died from a heart attack while mountain-biking near Motueka on 20 February 2014.
Whitaker'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 12-year-old Whitaker 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.
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. Whitaker 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.
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