NZ-based researcher elected onto elite scientific body

A New Zealand-based researcher has been elected into an elite, 110-year-old international scientific group that decides if animals are named properly.

Zhi-Qiang Zhang - mite specialist, founder of several international zoology journals and globe-trotting researcher - was made a commissioner of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

Together, the expertise of the 28 commissioners covers most of the animal kingdom. They are the last word when it comes to resolving disputes on animal names, according to the system invented by Swedish naturalist Linnaeus in 1758.

Dr Zhang is the first New Zealand-based scientist to be elected to the commission since it was founded in 1895.

"I feel very honoured to be elected to the commission.

"The appointment is further recognition by the international science community of the quality of work being done in New Zealand to define our species," he said.

Educated in Shanghai, New York, and London, the New Zealand-based acarologist (one who studies mites and ticks) has published more than 150 articles in scientific journals.

When not resolving disputes about the proper names of the world's fauna, Dr Zhang is a researcher at Landcare Research in Auckland.

- NZPA