John Tennent

John Tennent assists the entomology team with curation of the historically important butterfly collections. Following voluntary early retirement from a working life in the British Army to indulge his interests in Natural History, he has travelled widely, usually on paths least travelled. He has authored nine books, from butterflies of North Africa, and the Solomon Islands, to an anthology of insects in poetry. He has published 330 papers and reviews on a variety of subjects, including description of some 220 new butterfly taxa, and received awards from sources including the Linnean Society and the Papua New Guinea Government. A Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum in London, his current research interests embrace systematics of Pacific and Macaronesian islands butterflies and the history of natural history; recent books include a 609-page biography of Albert Stewart Meek, one of Rothschild’s most prolific collectors for the zoological museum at Tring in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and a 676-page revision of the lycaenid genus Hypochrysops with Australian co-author Chris Müller.