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
Summerland Peninsula Bird Area. It is home to one of the largest Little Penguin ("Eudyptula minor") breeding colonies in Australia, the second largest breeding colony of Australian Fur Seals ("Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus") in the world, one of the largest breeding colonies of Greater crested terns ("Sterna bergii") in Victoria and an important breeding ground for Short-tailed shearwaters ("Puffinus tenuirostris"). Several plants regarded as rare or threatened in either Victoria or Australia have been recorded on the peninsula, including River Swamp Wallaby-grass ("Amphibromus fluitans") listed as vulnerable in Australia. The peninsula was significantly modified by agricultural, residential and recreational developments until the 1980s