Roger Farrow ‘Insects: there is more to them than meets the eye.’

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Thursday, 10 November 2016 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Roger, formerly of CSIRO Entomology, will feature the remarkable adaptations that are found in local insect fauna.

Insects have filled almost every terrestrial niche and have seen plants and animals come and go since the Ordovician era 400 million years ago. They have evolved a huge range of behavioural traits and survival strategies over this enormous time scale. This talk will feature some of the remarkable adaptations that can be found in our local insect fauna.

Roger Farrow’s life with insects began on his grandparent’s farm on Romney Marsh in Kent where meadows and hedgerows were alive with birds and insects before the days of chemical farming. Grasshoppers and their ecology took Roger first to Mali to study migratory locusts and then to Australia to work on plague locusts for CSIRO, then on insect migration and eucalypt-feeding insects. His post-retirement project has now culminated in publication of the beautifully illustrated “Insects of South-eastern Australia”, which will frame his talk.

Roger will be happy to sign copies of his latest book.