Arthur Montagu Gwynn

Arthur Montagu Gwynn (5 August 1908 – 31 January 2008) was an Irish scientist and doctor.

Early life Born in Dublin, his father was Edward John Gwynn, Irish scholar and sometime Provost of Trinity College Dublin. His mother was Olive Mary Gwynn née Ponsonby.

From an early age he took a keen interest in natural history and had a special fondness for birds.

After attending St Columba's College in Rathfarnham Arthur Gwynn studied at Trinity College Dublin, from which he graduated in 1930 with first class honours in zoology, botany and geology. After a year of laboratory research at Cambridge University he spent the second year at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad, studying a disease of the papaya tree. By the end of the year he had decided that agriculture was not his preferred field, and instead of taking his doctorate he donated his research papers to a fellow student

From 1934 to 1938 he was engaged as a government entomologist doing field research on locusts, first in the remote Lake Chad area of west Africa, then at the Agriculture Research station at Serere, Uganda.

A species of lichen found in Antarctica was also named after him: Acarospora gwynnii (C W Dodge & E D Rudolph 1955).

Works Notes on the fur seals at Macquarie Island and Heard Island, Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, 1953 The status of the leopard seal at Heard Island and Macquarie Island, 1948-1950, Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, 1953 Penguin Marking at Heard Island, 1951 and 1953, Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, Interim Reports No. 8 (with M.C. Downes)