Evelyn Cheesman

Between 1924 and 1952, Cheesman went on eight solo expeditions in the South Pacific, and collected over 70,000 specimens, which she accompanied with sketches and notes.

She was able to continue exploring and gathering specimens on her own with the help of £100 from her brother Percy, who sent her money after he heard rumours about the expedition's possible financial instability.

In New Guinea she made a collecting expedition to the coastal area between Aitape and Jayapura (known as Hollandia at the time) and visited the nearby Cyclop Mountains.

After the war, in 1949–50, she travelled to the Pacific islands again, but due to ongoing pain, decided to give up active exploration.

Evelyn Cheesman made the first systematic studies of the insect life of the islands she visited in the South Pacific.

Her findings challenged the belief of her time that insect species of the south-west Pacific were most closely related to those of Australia.

Her work supported theories about the spread of populations in the area that indicated life in New Guinea was Asian in origin rather than Australian.

[4] A number of insect species are named after her including the recently described true bug Costomedes cheesmanae.

[14] She also collected reptiles and amphibians, and several New Guinea species were named in her honour: The tree frog is interesting in that the herpetologist who described it, has used the masculine genitive ending 'i' instead of the feminine 'ae', showing an assumption that the collector must have been a man.

The next few steps would have to be tunnelled through climbing fern, and then more orchids on trees with moisture continuously dripping off fringes of moss.

[16] Solanum cheesmaniae, a species of wild tomato native to the Galapagos Islands, [17]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2307/25065662, is named in her honor.