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
Chagos Archipelago fuscata"), brown and lesser noddies ("Anous stolidus" and "Anous tenuirostris") wedge-tailed shearwaters ("Puffinus pacificus") and red-footed boobies ("Sula sula"). Land bird fauna is poor and consists of introduced species and recent natural colonisers. Red fody had been introduced and now widespread. Environments of Chagos Archipelago provides rich biodiversity and support varieties of cetacean species within the vicinity, such as three populations of blue whales and toothed whales (sperm, pilot, orca, pseudo-orca, risso's and other dolphins such as spinners, and so on). Dugongs, being locally extinct today, once thrived in the archipelago and the Sea Cow Island was named after the