Pat Nuttall laboratory reagent, a result that was published in "Nature" in 1977. She then worked with ornithologist Chris Perrins trying to identify the virus responsible for puffinosis, a disease that affects the Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus") sea bird. During this research, Nuttall visited sea-bird colonies and became interested in ticks, arthropods that often infest sea birds as well as other vertebrates, and can act as vectors for disease. In the early 1980s, Nuttall started to study viruses transmitted by ticks, initially focusing on orbiviruses, nairoviruses and thogotoviruses. While performing experiments designed to explore whether "Thogoto virus", an influenza-like virus, can be
San Benedicto Island location where several seabirds of the tropical Eastern Pacific come to breed. Taxa breeding on San Benedicto are: The nearly extinct Townsend's shearwater ("Puffinus auricularis") does not seem to breed on San Benedicto, but can sometimes be seen feeding offshore. Given that there are no invasive species on San Benedicto and also no predators apart from the frigatebirds, the island might be highly suitable for establishing a new colony. Indeed, it bred here before the 1952 eruption; shearwaters are highly conservative in choosing their breeding locations, which explains why San Benedicto has not yet been recolonized. Vagrants of other species,