Densey Clyne (born Dorothy Denise Bell, 4 December 1922 – 21 May 2019)[1][2] was an Australian naturalist, photographer, writer, and documentarian.
[3][4] Clyne worked as a researcher, writer, narrator and/or adviser on a number of productions in partnership with cinematographer Jim Frazier.
In 1936, when Clyne was 12, the family was hit hard by the Great Depression and moved to Newcastle, Australia so her father could find a job as an engineer.
[2] As a naturalist, conservationist, and communicator, Clyne wrote more than 30 books on natural history and environmental subjects, particularly insects and spiders.
[13] Clyne's scientific contributions included the first detailed description of the net-making behaviour and sperm induction of the spider Asianopis subrufa;[14] the web structure of the spider Poecilopachys australasia;[15] and a joint paper with David Rentz, CSIRO Insect Division, on Anthophiloptera dryas, a new orthopteran genus and species, studied and recorded over several years by Clyne in her Sydney garden.
[16] Clyne wrote scripts for her own and other television documentaries on natural history, maintaining a partnership with filmmaker Jim Frazier.
[19][3][20] She delivered talks and addresses on invertebrate behaviour, the pleasures of insect-watching, natural history writing and wildlife filming to schools, adult groups, and professional organisations.
Frazier, who was present at the meeting, offered to help; their first attempt at cinematography, based on her research into insect behaviour, was so successful that the team was commissioned to complete one entire programme for the series.
[citation needed] In 1979, Clyne and Frazier were chosen as one of ten teams to work on David Attenborough's documentary series Life on Earth.
[29] The same year, they worked with producers Dione Gilmour and Peter Bale to film the BBC/ABC documentary Encounter Underground about bulldog ants.
[citation needed] The Amazing World of Mini Beasts (1997) was another documentary conceived, researched, written and presented by Clyne, in association with Silvergrass Productions.