John "Jock" Munne Moreland (b 11 January 1921

Wanganui Whanganui (; ), also spelled Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whangan ...

d. June 2012) was a New Zealand

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others th ...

and

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

who worked at the Dominion Museum, later the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring fr ...

, in Wellington.

Career

He was brought up and attended school in Wanganui before joining the

3rd Division (New Zealand) The 3rd New Zealand Division was a division of the New Zealand Military Forces. Formed in 1942, it saw action against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean Areas during the Second World War. The division saw action in the Solomon Islands campaign durin ...

serving in the Pacific Theatre during and the

2nd Division (New Zealand) The 2nd New Zealand Division, initially the New Zealand Division, was an infantry division of the New Zealand Military Forces (New Zealand's army) during the Second World War. The division was commanded for most of its existence by Lieutenant-Ge ...

during World War 2. After demobilising he joined the staff of the Dominion Museum. He graduated with a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in Biology from the

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

in 1958. He was appointed as an Assistant Zoologist, with

Charles McCann Yule Mervyn Charles McCann (4 December 1899 – 29 November 1980) was a naturalist in India. He wrote a popular book on the trees of India and edited a major regional flora apart from publishing many of his other observations, mainly in the jou ...

, who was the only vertebrate Zoologist at the museum at the time. McCann's interest was in marine mammals so he tasked Moreland with curating the collection of seabirds. This resulted in him becoming responsible for the New Zealand

Bird Banding Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight ...

Scheme, which the museum oversaw. This work resulted in the publication of ''A guide to the larger oceanic birds (albatrosses and giant petrel) of New Zealand waters''. Also in the 1950s Moreland began to study fish. He curated the fish collection between 1949 until his retirement in 1981, developing it into a major collection of specimens which became the National Fish Collection of New Zealand.

Publications

Moreland wrote no less than 12 research papers and his output included the following books: * ''New Zealand Sea Anglers' Guide''1960 (with R.B. Doogue and E. Heath) * ''Native Sea Fishes'' 1963 * ''Marine Fishes'' 1965 * ''Marine Fishes of New Zealand'' 1967 (with E. Heath) * ''Handbook of New Zealand Marine Fishes'' 1993 (with L.J. Paul)

Legacy

Moreland described 2 fish species the Alert pigfish (''Alertichthys blacki'') and '' Congiopodus coriaceus''. He had 3 fish species named in his honour, the New Zealand urchin clingfish (''Dellichthys morelandi'') and the duckbills '' Hemerocoetes morelandi'' and the New Zealand flathead (''Bembrops morelandi''), as well as 3 species of invertebrate.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moreland, John Munne 1921 births 2012 deaths 20th-century New Zealand zoologists New Zealand marine biologists New Zealand ichthyologists People from Whanganui