Dreikikir, Lae, and Popondetta.
With longer-term surveys and studies in mind, during his 1961 visit Gressitt established the Bishop Museum Field Station at Wau (see also section on Integrated Expeditions, as well as under Vertebrates above). There, he settled in residence Joseph Sedlacek, his wife Marie, and their son J. H. Sedlacek. There then ensued continuous insect collecting for the Bishop Museum, along with the already-mentioned collection of parasites with their vertebrate hosts as well as plants for identification of insect hosts.
Besides the Sedlaceks’ decade of work in succession to Brandt, Ray Straatman (after migrating from Netherlands New Guinea) collected 1961–1966, and Abid Beg Mirza 1967–1974 (and in 1975–1980 part-time while manager of WEI). For shorter periods during the 1960s many others (not all entomologists) participated, including T. C. Maa, Wallace A. Steffan, G. A. Samuelson, L. W. and S. Quate, Y. M. Huang, S. Sirivanakarn, Nixon Wilson, F. J. Radovsky, and A. C. Ziegler (all associated with the Bishop Museum research staff); Dr and Mrs Szent-Ivany as associates for varying periods of time; and E. J. Ford, Jr., Peter Shanahan, Geoff Monteith, P. H. Colman, N. L. H. Krauss, and H. Clissold as well as local assistants Tawi Bukam, Rennie, Spanis, Wita, Gewise, G. Nalu, and others. Cooperating researchers from other institutions largely funded by or through Bishop Museum included Drs C. D. Michener, E. N. Marks (see section on the World War II era and also below), John Smart, Peter Mattingly, D. Eimo Hardy, Robert Traub, M. Nadchatram, J. Balogh (1969 trip only), and Y. Hirashima. Field areas examined by Gressitt included, in 1963 and 1966–1967, Enga, Tari, the Kubor Mts, and Mt Michael; in 1965 (with T. C. Maa) to Mt Ialibu; in 1966 (with E. C. and R. Gressitt) to Mt Wilhelm and the Kubor and Schrader ranges; in 1969 to the Bulldog Road, Garaina (with M. and E. Gressitt), Mt Wilhelm, and Angoram (with Balogh and Hirashima); and in other years many other areas (all Bishop Museum, with some reference material retained in Wau).
From 1970 work at Wau gradually shifted to ecological and other research (covering a wider field) as well as, in time, education, conservation, and handbook preparation. In 1971 the Field Station became separately incorporated as Wau Ecology Institute; but many of those mentioned in this section continued to work or be based there, and others would join them in various capacities for targeted research (among them Hampton Carson on Drosophila diversification). In the later 1970s Gressitt was succeeded as Director by H. Sakulas, but until Gressitt’s tragic death in April 1982 in China he remained closely associated.
From 1962 another important local collection began its development, this time at the Forest Research Station in Bulolo. Barry Gray and Ross Wylie, and later Peter Shanahan, John Dobunaba, and Dr H. Roberts, built up a large collection and much data for forest insects. In the latter 1980s the collection was moved to Lae as part of the Forest Research Institute (see section on Flora of Eastern New Guinea, above), where it remains. Many scolytid beetles were described from this collection by Schedl. From the 1970s a reference collection was also assembled at the Insect Farming and Trading Agency in Bulolo; for some years it was headed by the lepidopterist Michael Parsons who while there also developed extensive data on distribution—later part of a substantial book (The Butterflies of Papua New Guinea, 1998). Parsons also studied some of the host plants.
A laboratory for study of the screw-worm fly was set up around 1964 by CSIRO—run in connection with related activities in Australia, and their first longer-term presence in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG). P. Spradbery, D. Sands, and R. Tozer were entomologists there, the last-named active into the 1980s.
A wide range of insects was collected by others, both within and outside of government and by amateurs as well as professionals. From the latter part of the 1950s onwards beetles in particular continued to attract amateurs, so continuing the tradition of von Benningsen (see section on New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, 1875–1914, above). Sir Alan Mann, in the 1950s Chief Justice of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, collected many beetles as well as other insects. A somewhat later (1962–1974) beetle collector was Dr R. W. Hornabrook, a government physician initially at Okapa studying Kuru (see above) and later first director of the Institute of Human Biology at Goroka (now the Institute of Medical Research). Most of his collections were from the Highlands and in the Huon Peninsula (Wellington; some types in BMNH and Bishop). Another amateur, Henry Ohlmus, from 1961–1980 assembled much material from the highlands and elsewhere (mostly Canberra and Brisbane; some types in Bishop). A Canadian amateur, R. Parrott, in 1970 made a large collection in the northeast.
Janos Balogh (partly with I. Loksa) on six visits (1956–1980) made many collections, mostly of soil arthropods (Budapest). In 1957 Drs Eugene Munroe and George Holland from Ottawa made extensive collections of moths, mostly at highland localities (CNC). In 1964 M. E. Bacchus, as a member of the BMNH-University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne expedition (see section on Flora of Eastern New Guinea, above), collected beetles (especially water-beetles) near Wau, Huon Peninsula, etc. In 1966 Prof. J. Illies (general editor of the Junk series Monograph-iae Biologicae) searched for Trichoptera in the Eastern Highlands (Schlitz). In 1968–1969 Pierre Jolivet studied ecological aspects of several arthropod groups, including parasites, in the Eastern Highlands and elsewhere; later he published an introduction to New Guinea entomology (see section on References, below). In 1978 P. Deharveng collected Collembola, both at Wau and elsewhere (Toulouse).
From Australia D. K. McAlpine in 1963–1964 collected Diptera (AM). Elizabeth Marks made several visits collecting mosquitos, mostly in Papua between 1957 and 1979 (QIMR). G. Monteith in the 1960s collected insects, especially Hemiptera on several visits (Bishop, Brisbane). I. W. B. Thornton (Latrobe University) and C. N. Smithers (AM) in 1970 collected Psocoptera in several areas of the mainland and in 1974 in the Bismarcks.
In recent years active entomologists have included Scott Miller (Bishop, then Smithsonian) and D. Polhemus (Smithsonian), the latter interested in particular in aquatic insects.
Other Invertebrates
F. R. Allison collected Protozoa (NZ). D. F. McMichael collected land and freshwater mollusks at many areas, both east and west on two trips (1955, 1956) as a Bishop Museum fellow (AM). Y. Kondo collected some land mollusks, 1965 (Bishop). But much activity here was associated with marine expeditions (see section on Integrated Expeditions, above).
PALEOHISTORY: BRIEF REMARKS (SINCE 1945)
Animal fossils were studied in the Bulolo-Watut area by Michael Plane (CSIRO). Ethnological and archeological animal material was studied in the highlands (Jimi Valley, 1955, etc.) by Ralph and Susan Bulmer (AM, Auckland; see also Gressitt 1982: chapter II, 3). Archeological animals were also studied by J. Hope in 1969 (ANU; see also section on Flora of Eastern New Guinea, above) and James Menzies in the 1970s (UPNG). Vertebrate fossils were also obtained and studied by T. Flannery (working with Plane), with a contribution on the Pureni area (Southern Highlands). Plant fossils (notably pollen) were the subject of several years of work by D. Walker and his associates on the Quaternary era (see Flora of Eastern New Guinea, above). D. Haig (UPNG) examined Foraminifera in the 1970s and 1980s. All these (with other contributions too numerous to mention here) have now provided a clearer, though still sketchy, view of the pre-Tertiary, Tertiary, and Quaternary paleobiotic history of New Guinea in train with contemporary changes in geological and biological thought.
Collections
MAJOR COLLECTIONS OF NEW GUINEA BIOTA
Collections within Papua or Papua New Guinea are underlined. For plants abbreviations in parentheses follow usage in Index Herbariorum I: Herbaria of the World (8th ed. 1990, New York). An asterisk (*) indicates institutions with more or less significant holdings of pre-1942 plant material. (The majority of the Berlin herbarium was lost or destroyed during World War II, but pteridophytes, a few flowering plant families, and many types are intact, as well as replicates, e.g., of Clemens, not yet distributed before the war. Plants were also lost from the British Museum (Natural History) in 1940 likewise due to bombing.)
All groups (mainly historical collections):
