(München, Frankfurt).
Turning to the 1960s, the establishment of the Bishop Museum Field Station (later the Wau Ecology Institute) at Wau (1961) provided a new focus (see also Integrated Expeditions and Surveys section, above). Vertebrate research also figured in its activities, with mammals and their ectoparasites of particular interest. Collections were made by M. C. Thompson and P. Temple; R. Traub (USNM) with Abid Beg Mirza, M. Nadchatram, E. Mann, Wilson, Ziegler, R. Greene (Bishop; WEI), D. Schlitter, and S. Williams (also Carnegie). Early outside visitors included, in 1962, Alden H. Miller (birds) and W. Z. Lidicker, Jr. (mammals), focusing on the Wau-Bulolo area (MVZ).
Separately, Professor T. C. Schultze-Westrum (a nephew of L. Schultze-Jena; see above) in 1964 and 1970 studied mammals and conservation at Mt Bosavi and elsewhere for the IUCN and the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) authorities. Also in 1964 and continuing over several visits, Jared Diamond (most recently author of Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) and Collapse (2004)) undertook his detailed surveys of birds of certain mountains, including Mt Karimui and the Torricellis, pioneering certain aspects of ecology and biogeography and at the same time making recommendations for conservation (collections mainly AMNH). In 1972 Diamond published his critical Avifauna of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea, a notable contribution to the literature.
During the CSIRO surveys (see above, Integrated Expeditions section) R. Schodde collected many birds (and some insects) as well as plants, for example, with S. Schodde at Lake Kutubu and Mt Giluwe (1961) and in Central Province (1962). W. B. Hitchcock collected birds in 1963 with botanists W. Vink and R. Pullen (CSIRO), Pullen also collecting some insects (CSIRO).
The Noona Dan expedition of 1962 (see Integrated Expeditions section, above) in its survey of the Bismarck Archipelago also collected animals, with Torben Wolff, Leif Linneborg, Finn Salomonsen, and Wm. Buch particularly interested in birds, insects, and fresh water and marine organisms (Copenhagen).
More detailed herpetological work had its advent in the 1960s. Fred Parker, a government officer, from 1960–1978 made large herpetological collections in many parts of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (MCZ, AM, etc.). Harold Cogger collected reptiles and amphibians in several areas, especially in the former Territory of Papua. Michael J. Tyler, Shaw Mayer’s successor at Nondugl, from 1960 collected many frogs and reptiles in Wahgi Valley and on the Wahgi-Sepik divide; and in 1967 he made a frog survey of New Britain (Adelaide, AM, BMNH, AMNH). Richard Zweifel in 1964, 1968, and 1969 collected many frogs in several areas in the Highlands, the Wau area, and along the north coast (AMNH). In 1969 Harold Heatwole, while on the Fairbridge New Guinea coral reef expedition, studied reptiles on some smaller islands in eastern Papua. George Zug collected reptiles and amphibians in 1971 at Mt Kaindi and elsewhere (USNM). In 1968 James Menzies joined the staff of UPNG, beginning his long association with New Guinea herpetology (as well as mammalogy and, with collaborators, in botany); after a period in Africa in the 1980s he returned, first to the National Museum, then back to UPNG (retiring in 2001).
In more recent years Tim Flannery (now in Adelaide, and author of Mammals of New Guinea (1990; 2nd ed., 1995) and Mammals of the South-West Pacific and Moluccan Islands (1995) as well as The Future Eaters (1994) and Throwim Way Leg (1998), the last an account of his fieldwork from 1981 onwards) has been the most prominent in mammology; but Menzies also made significant contributions including A Handbook of New Guinea Marsupials and Monotremes (1991). In ornithology B. Beehler (now Washington DC), B.J. Coates (now Queensland), T. K. Pratt (now Hawai’i), and M. LeCroy (New York) have been very active since the 1970s; and resident "twitchers" (especially B. W. Finch, P. Gregory, K. D. Bishop) have continued their observations. Most notable, perhaps, were the doctoral and postdoctoral ornithological field studies conducted on Crater Mountain and Mt Missim in the 1970s and 1980s by A. Mack, D. Wright, B. Beehler, T. Pratt, and S. Pruett-Jones. These encompass the most significant fieldwork completed to date on New Guinea’s birdlife, and at Crater Mountain led the way towards long-term involvement (see section on Integrated Expeditions, above). Beehler and Pratt (with D. A. Zimmerman) have published what is now a standard handbook (Birds of New Guinea, 1986; see also Burung-burung di Kawasan Papua, 2001). The Bismarcks (with the Solomons) were quite recently also the subject of a monograph, The Birds of Northern Melanesia (2002) by Mayr and Diamond. In herpetology, besides Cogger, Tyler, and Menzies (particularly in amphibians), M. O’Shea has studied reptiles (notably snakes). Gerald Allen (Perth) has been active in ichthyology, publishing moreover two field guides, respectively in 1991 (freshwater fish) and 1993 (reef fish)—both through the Christensen Research Institute.
At the present time, the vertebrates of Papua New Guinea (or New Guinea as a whole) are relatively well covered in field and technical guides, all dating from the 1980s or later and to some of which specific reference has been made. Nevertheless, as the various conservation assessment reports (see References section, below) indicate, many gaps remain.
Arthropoda (Insects and Spiders)
As with birds, an early sponsor in entomology after World War II was Halls-trom—in effect carrying on the Rothschild tradition. He engaged Wm. W. Brandt, earlier from Europe, to make a large collection of Lepidoptera—primarily butter-flies—in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) from 1949 to 1955, covering many localities. Hallstrom then terminated the operation and gave the collection for the future national collections (while depositing it for safe-keeping with CSIRO at Canberra, in the manner of Macgregor long before with his official collections, sent to the Queensland Museum). Brandt then collected half-time for the Bishop Museum (miscellaneous insects) from 1956 to 1960 (Bishop), the other half of his time being spent on Lepidoptera for the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (and adding to the collections deposited by Hallstrom; CSIRO). Later on he was employed by CSIRO to curate the collection and to do some further collecting in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (CSIRO).
In the 1950s Stan Christian, Harry A. Standfast, Wallace Peters, and others worked on mosquitoes and built up a reference collection (now at UPNG) as well as making studies of malaria transmission and teaching mosquito control. Gordon Dun of the Mandated Territory service (see section Between World War I and World War II, above) carried on with DASF to about 1960. In 1954 he was joined by Dr Joseph J. H. Szent-Ivany, a refugee from Hungary (where he had been a curator of Lepidoptera at Budapest and university lecturer in zoogeography) who had migrated to Australia. On field trips and vacations until in 1966 retiring from government service (and later at Wau Ecology Institute; see below) Szent-Ivany collected extensively in various areas, greatly adding to the DASF collection (Konedobu).
Other government entomologists who helped add to the DASF collections included J. H. Barrett, T. L. Fenner (see also Flora of Eastern New Guinea section, above), J. Healy, L. Smee, A. Catley, R. M. Stevens, T. V. Bourke, G. Baker, E. Hassan, Stuart Smith, J. N. L. Stibick, and Jan Greve. Further additions were made in 1962–1963 by J. Allen, J. M. Carlisle, D. Hutton, I. Johnson, D. Price, M. Stevens, M. Erben, and G. Rosenberg who collected insects on various mountaintops in those years. In the 1970s Donald Sands (later chief entomologist) collected butterflies as well as other insects (DASF; CSIRO).
In 1955 Edward O. Wilson, then a graduate fellow at Harvard University, collected and observed ants in various areas, mainly in the northern and southern lowlands but also ascending to the top of the Saruwaged Range (MCZ). From this work he developed the concept of "the taxon cycle" as an evolutionary geographical process. Elements of E. O. Wilson’s work in New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands also feature in his many popular books (e.g., The Diversity of Life, 1992; Naturalist, 1994).
In that same year J. L. Gressitt (see also above) commenced his 26 years of annual visits or extended stays, focusing on insects: 1955 in the Eastern and Western Highlands, Mt Otto, Mt Wilhelm, the Jimi Valley, the north coast, Manus, New Ireland, and New Britain; 1956 in Kokoda, New Britain (including a coconut beetle study for DASF), and the Solomons; 1957 in the Solomons, the north coast, and Biak; 1958 in Southern Highlands and Baiyer River; 1959 on the north coast, in the Cyclops Mts, and at Fakfak; 1960 in the Oriomo region and Cape Rodney; 1961 (with wife Margaret) to many highland areas, Mt Karimui,
