| Lyn Forster | |
| Birth Name: | Lyndsay McLaren Clifford |
| Birth Date: | 19 September 1925 |
| Birth Place: | Wallaceville, New Zealand |
| Death Place: | Mosgiel, New Zealand |
| Fields: | Arachnology |
| Workplaces: | University of Otago |
| Alma Mater: | University of Otago |
| Thesis Title: | Comparative aspects of the behavioural biology of some New Zealand jumping spiders |
| Thesis Url: | https://otago.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/q5v1tf/OTAGO_ALMA21116034110001891 |
| Thesis Year: | 1979 |
| Children: | 4 |
Lyndsay McLaren Forster (née Clifford; 19 September 1925 – 20 January 2009) was a New Zealand arachnologist.[1] [2]
Forster was born in Upper Hutt and grew up on a small farm near Feilding. She enrolled at Victoria University College in Wellington but moved to Christchurch in 1948 without completing her degree. She moved again to Dunedin in 1957; in the late 1960s she returned to her university studies and eventually completed a PhD at the University of Otago in 1979.
Forster was a lecturer in zoology at the University of Otago, and also carried out research and wrote papers and books on spiders. Her work focused on jumping spiders, and on white-tailed spiders and Australian redback spiders. In addition, she worked at the Otago Museum designing and creating displays of spiders, and running educational programmes on spiders for children.[3]
Forster was also an active member of the Otago Institute (the Otago branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand); in 1990 she was elected president, the first woman to hold the position.
In 1948 Forster married fellow scientist Ray Forster. The couple had four children together.