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
Scarlett's shearwater Scarlett's shearwater Scarlett's shearwater ("Puffinus spelaeus") is an extinct species of seabird in the petrel family Procellariidae. Its common name commemorates New Zealand palaeontologist Ron Scarlett, who recognised the bird's subfossil remains represented a distinct species. This bird was described from bones collected in 1991 from a cave near the Fox River in the South Island of New Zealand. Subsequent discoveries of bones dating from 20,000 years ago to less than 600 years old reveal it was found only in the west and northwest of the South Island, in Northwest Nelson and Buller. Scarlett's shearwater was closely related to the