Meetings programme

Schedule of upcoming meetings

The Society's meetings are open to Fellows, guests and members of the public.
Entry is free, but fellows and guests are reminded that if they wish to partake of refreshments before the meeting, there is a $4.00 charge to cover this.

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, March to November inclusive. Meeting commence at 6.30 pm and are preceded by wine and nibbles at 6.00 pm. 

An invited lecture is normally arranged for each meeting. For ordinary meetings, the reading of papers and the presentation of exhibits of scientific interest.  

These meetings are usually held in the Society's Rooms. Meetings are occasionally organised jointly with other kindred societies and may be held elsewhere. Occasional Symposia on topical issues are also organised by the Society.

May 10th  Chris Daniels, Rewilding and the future of Parks, Zoos and the Nature Experience.

Chris is Professor of Biology in the School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences at UniSA. He researches and teaches in life sciences and conducts Natural Resource Management (NRM) consultancies and other environmental leadership activities focused on conserving wildlife and connecting people with nature. He has an obsessional interest in all animals, especially lizards.

June   Prof Gavin Prideaux, 4th Ralph Tate Memorial Lect. 7.00 pm Mawson Lect Theatre.
How has Australian mammal evolution been shaped by environmental change over the past 25 million years?

Cenozoic climatic changes have had a profound effect on the nature of terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, much of our understanding is based on inferences drawn from the dental adaptations of hoofed mammals. As Professor Tate pointed out more than a century ago, there is no sound basis for assuming that Australia and its biota should follow all of the rules written in Europe or North America. Australia  offers a potentially excellent test of Holarctic models. Separating from Antarctica 45 million years ago, Australia was long isolated from non-flying immigrants until rodents island-hopped from southeast Asia five million years ago. Moreover, most of its endemic mammals are marsupials, which diversified in situ, filling a spectrum of niches variably comparable with placentals elsewhere. Australia thus harbours a unique evolutionary experiment: an isolated radiation of fundamentally different mammals that adapted to environmental changes in the virtual absence of competing immigrants. Through the late Cenozoic, the continent became drier and more climatically variable, changes linked to the emergence of a diverse, aridity-adapted biota. This talk will review what we know about Australian mammals against this tumultuous backdrop, and highlight some key points of difference with Northern Hemisphere patterns. It will reflect on some of the more interesting known unknowns of Australian mammal evolution and extinction, and how current research is directed toward resolving them.