Background
Worthy grew up in Broadwood, Northland and went to Whangarei Boys’ High School.
ornithologist paleontologist Zoologist
Worthy grew up in Broadwood, Northland and went to Whangarei Boys’ High School.
Worthy completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science at the University of Waikato, then did a second Master"s degree at Victoria University of Welington.
He began his career as a largely self-taught palaeontologist, after becoming interested in fossils through caving. In 1987 he described three new leiopelmatid frog species from cave subfossils: the Aurora frog (Leiopelma auroraensis), Markham"s frog (Leiopelma markhami), and the Waitomo frog (Leiopelma waitomoensis). In the 1990s Worthy discovered several fossil bird species new to science, including the long-billed wren (Dendroscansor decurvirostris) in 1991, Scarlett"s shearwater (Puffinus spelaeus) in 1991, and the Niue night heron (Nycticorax kalavikai) in 1995.
In 1991 he also described the Northland skink, a fossil skink species new to science.
In 1998 Worthy excavated subfossil bones in Fiji, where he found remains of the flightless Viti Levu giant pigeon (Natunaornis gigoura), the Viti Levu scrubfowl (Megapodius amissus), the Viti Levu snipe (Coenocorypha miratropica), the giant Fiji ground frog (Platymantis megabotoniviti), and the small freshwater crocodile Volia athollandersoni. The holotypes of these species were deposited in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Foreign years Worthy has been involved in the excavation of Miocene fossils (the Saint Bathans Fauna) from a prehistoric lake in Central Otago, including the oldest known moa bones, the oldest tuatara bones, and the first known fossil land mammal from New Zealand. Worthy"s research, based in Masterton, Nelson, and Te Papa, had been funded by grants from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology since 1991, but in 2005 his funding was cut by the Foundation.
Since 2005, he has been based at the University of New South Wales and the University of Adelaide.
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Adelaide in 2008 and a Doctor of Science from the University of Waikato in 2011. Worthy is author or co-author of numerous research papers about prehistoric life in New Zealand.