Humanities Technician Cassandra Bahr has been working in the Collected Archives at Te Papa, cataloguing and rehousing papers from people connected to Te Papa’s collecting areas. Here, she discusses the archive of Tony Whitaker, a renowned herpetologist who donated his collection of specimens to Te Papa. For an introduction to Tony Whitaker, read Anthony Hume Whitaker, MNZM (1944–2014) – a tribute, and to understand more of the importance of his work, see A gift of lizards – 35 years to completion.
Anthony Whitaker took thousands of photos of lizards, and many are excellent photos in their own right as well as useful scientifically. Here is a beauty to start with:
Scientific Connections
Sharing knowledge has always been a fundamental part of scientific practice. Nowadays, we find scientific papers through journals online (provided our institutions have access!). But before the internet, scientists, librarians, and universities maintained an efficient system of postcards and reprints.
Dotted throughout Tony Whitaker’s folders of correspondence are small postcards from all around the world – Czechia, Germany, Hawaii, Sweden, Mauritius, Argentina, France, Kenya. Written on these postcards are polite requests for a reprint of a particular paper of Whitaker’s. He kept a stash of his reprints, which he could then send out in response.
It wasn’t just professional scientists who wrote to each other – Whitaker received many letters from amateur herpetologists both young and old. Sometimes the children grew up to be professional herpetologists!
New Tech
Whitaker keenly adapted to incoming technologies, and he and his friends delighted in the tricks their word processors could do.
Don’t try this at home!
Whitaker was very adventurous. Here is an excerpt from a letter detailing a recent trip to Vanuatu. This tells the story of visiting the active volcano Mt Yasur, after signing liability waivers – only that year three people had already died from being hit by flying lava.
“We stayed in a tiny jungle village on east side of the island about 8km from the volcano and for the first couple of days wandered around in the forest, swam, and listened to the huge explosions. Every time it blew (several times an hour) sounded like a massive clap of thunder and huge plumes of smoke went up. Our trip to the crater was made on a beautiful clear moonlit night – it’s better at night because of the glow from the lava – and we got to the rim about 10 pm. The closer we got the more the earth shook and the louder the noise. Near the top is all fresh ash because the tracks get covered all the time. On the crater rim you look down about 300m of steep cinder cone to a huge pool of red-hot lava. The vents roar all the time like a 747 taking off, chucking out steam and smoke, then every so often it blows up with one helluva bang chucking red hot lava and rocks way higher than the crater rim. AWESOME, and very frightening. You keep wondering where the rocks are going to go (but at least they are easier to see at night because they are red-hot) and whether the next bang is going to blow the top off the mountain. The ni-Vanuatu chap that came up with us said the table-sized rocks where we were standing weren’t there the day before when he had been up with another couple of visitors! After an hour and a half on the rim and 6-7 big bangs we decided we were pushing our luck so walked back down. If you want a big adrenalin rush this is it.”
Here’s a bonus story, also from the Vanuatu trip. Disclaimer: Whitaker was a VERY experienced herpetologist, please do not try this on your next trip to the Pacific!
“The snakes we got to play with were banded sea-snakes. I wanted some better photos for the field guide and we searched everywhere to find some, quite unsuccessfully despite checking the places we found them last time. Eventually we decided to try a tiny islet right out on the reef and managed to persuade a couple of ni-Vanuatu to take us out in a tiny boat. The island was only 80m square, low coral with few shrubs but we found a lot of snakes tucked up in crevices. The locals were terrified of them but I had heard they were OK to handle despite their highly toxic venom. Anyway we took the plunge and picked up a few. They were great, very placid and gentle – definitely cute and cuddly. The two ni-Vans watched fascinated as Viv posed the snakes for me to take photos, bending them round as if they were plastic. Eventually they plucked up courage to gingerly touch them – I guess they thought that if a middle-aged ‘palagi’ woman could do it would look bad for their macho image if they whimped [sic] out.”
Oh, and the title of this blog? Whitaker first became renowned for his work demonstrating that lizards thrived on rat-free islands, after which many of his friends played with the similarity between kiore and kia ora when writing him letters. They also called him Whit for short.
All lizard images by Anthony Whitaker MNZM, Te Papa (TMP034453), and Frog and reptile images, 2001 by Anthony Whitaker MNZM. Gift of Vivienne Whitaker, 2020. Te Papa (CA001392/001/0011), unless otherwise specified.
Thanks, that was a great read. And beautiful photos.