New Museum Entomologist Won Fame As Amateur

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 12

New Museum Entomologist Won Fame As Amateur

An amateur entomologist who has become a world authority in his field, has been appointed research officer in entomology at the Canterbury Museum. He is Mr J. G. J. Penniket, who will develop a five-year research project on aquatic entomology, notably New Zealand mayflies, which he describes as a little group considered by many to be the most archaic of living winged insects and as unique, interesting and important in their own right as the sphenodon or tuatara.

Mr Penniket who is 40 and married with three children, has travelled a long way to achieve his present post His early interest in biology was interrupted by war service. He later married and became a schoolteacher, but “finding this unduly to interfere with his biological studies” he became in turn deer-stalker, opossum - trapper, bushman and farmer in Wellington province and on the West Coast

In 1958, the late Professor Edward Percival, who was visiting him in Westland to study kakas, encouraged him to undertake formal rather than amateur entomological research.

With help from Professor Percival’s successor, Professor G. A. Knox, Mr E. G. Turbott, Mr A. G. McFarlane and a number of distinguished entomologists from various overseas countries, Mr Penniket began the studies of New Zealand mayflies which earned him international recognition. In 1962 he was invited to lecture at the tenth New Zealand Science Congress and given a grant for research from the National Science Foundation of America. After publics-

tion of a number of scientific papers, in 1963, Mr and Mrs Penniket and their children moved to Christchurch so that Mr Penniket could study for a science degree. Mr Penniket looks forward to seeing whether a. biological background gained mainly in the field and among country people will

prove an advantage in making scientific work interesting and intelligible to the general public. The Museum Trust Board yesterday also appointed Mr A. G. McFarlane, who holds a master of science degree, as technical assistant to Mr Penniket for two years. He is a retired teacher with experience in entomology who offered his services to get the new work started. These developments have been made possible by grants of £3OOO a year from the Golden Kiwi lotteries.