Presentation by Dr Bob Mesibov
QVMAG – Inveresk
Monday, 1st August 2011 Commencing 7.30 pm until 9.30 pm
About the Speaker
Dr Mesibov will discuss a curious feature of two millipede species in the State’s northwest. The range of the widespread millipede Tasmaniosoma hickmanorum (Polydesmida: Dalodesmidae) has a 400 sq km ‘hole’ which is filled with the range of T. compitale. The boundary between the two species is 200km long, does not follow habitat boundaries and in places is only 100 m wide. In this presentation Dr Mesibov will report the latest results from fine-scale mapping of this boundary and will discuss other strange features of the biology of these two millipede species
Brief Abstract of the Talk
Dr Mesibov has been an Honorary Research Associate of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery since 1994. He was the editor of the Museum’s Invertebrata newsletter (1997-2002) and is currently president of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists. He has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in the USA. Since migrating to Tasmania in 1973 he has worked as a mine assayer, high school teacher, forester, forest ecology/zoology/forest management consultant and museum-based zoologist. Now retired, he lives in Penguin and studies millipedes and other litter invertebrates.
