The South Pacific is a vast expanse of ocean-over 50 million km²-with tiny scattered islands and island groups. From Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Fiji in the west, to the far-flung Marquesas and Austral Islands in French Polynesia in the east, this book surveys and discovers the butterfly inhabitants of these tropical islands. For completeness, Hawai'i to the north-where there are many fewer islands in an otherwise empty ocean-is included. To the south and with a much larger land area, lies temperate New Zealand, with a further string of islands reaching into subantarctic waters.
Brian Patrick is the co-author of several books on natural history and invertebrates, including Wild Central and Wild Fiordland (with Neville Peat), Butterflies of the South Pacific (with Hamish Patrick) and Butterflies and Moths of New Zealand (with Brian Parkinson). He has worked for the Department of Conservation, New Zealand, as a senior manager in museums, and now works as a scientist in an ecological consultancy in Christchurch.
Hamish Patrick could not escape butterflies and moths, as Brian's son, and has assisted in the fieldwork for and writing of this book. He is completing his masters at Canterbury University.