Evan Graham Turbott

Evan Graham Turbott (27 May 1914 – 12 December 2014) was a New Zealand ornithologist, zoologist, and museum administrator. He served as director of the Auckland Institute and Museum from 1964 to 1979.

Early life and family Born at Stanley Bay on Auckland's North Shore, Turbott was the eldest of the three sons of Thomas Turbott, headmaster of Grey Lynn School, and his wife Evangeline Alice Turbott (née Graham). His brothers included the diplomat and businessman Ian Turbott. He was educated at Stanley Bay School, Vauxhall School, and was a foundation pupil of Takapuna Grammar School. His thesis was entitled Some observations on the distribution and anatomy of Leiopelma hochstetteri Fitzinger.

Career

In 1937, Turbott was appointed as assistant zoologist at Auckland War Memorial Museum. On 7 September 1940, Turbott married the museum's ethnologist Olwyn Mary Rutherford at All Saints' Church, Howick. In 1944 he spent a year on coast-watching duties in the subantarctic Auckland Islands as part of the Cape Expedition, which also included Charles Fleming and Robert Falla, but he also found time to pursue his interest in natural history.

Turbott returned and continued at Auckland Museum. In 1948, Turbott described Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi), naming the species after museum director Gilbert Archey. In 1957, Turbott left to become the assistant director of Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. He returned in 1964 to take up the post of director of the Auckland Institute and Museum, succeeding Archey. He remained there until he retired in August 1979, He was bestowed with the Robert Falla Memorial Award by the Ornithological Society of New Zealand in 1988, and made a fellow of the same organisation in 1997.

Honorific eponynyms There are 15 species, mostly invertebrates from New Zealand offshore islands,

Lake Turbott, on Adams Island in the Auckland Islands, was also named after Turbott.