Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Special Lecture by Michael Archer
Event Details
- Date:
- Tuesday, 08 October 2019
- Time:
- 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
- Room:
- Advanced Engineering Building, Room 200
- URL:
- https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/society-of-vertebrate-paleontology-special-lecture-by-michael-archer-tickets-71608213093
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Miss Phoebe Baldwin
- Phone:
- 31095
- Email:
- p.baldwin@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Science
Event Description
- Full Description:
- The University of Queensland is pleased to present the 2019 Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology Conference Special Lecture by Professor Michael Archer 'Life, Sex, Songs, Scrat and the Sponge: Australia’s Guinness Book of Evolutionary Records':
Australians have for too long labored under the early European delusion that the natural productions of Australia are somehow less remarkable than those that evolved in other lands. In reality, many of the most interesting major events in the history of life on Earth appear to have taken place first in Australia. Steadily accumulating discoveries in the fossil record and in the living world make it increasingly clear that a surprising number of the world’s first, biggest and most extraordinary creatures evolved here. Far from being the evolutionary backwater some northerners have presumed, this place records the first undoubted cells, possibly the first evidence of sex, first evidence of sexual intercourse, the first animals, first predators, first bone, first necks, first ‘proto-tetrapod’ (with apologies to Tiktalik), first massive forests, biggest dinosaur, first megaraptor, biggest bird, first songbirds, world’s only ‘drop crocs’, most ferocious mammalian carnivore, only triple vagina/double penis mammals, world’s tallest trees, longest-living plants, world’s most grotesque animal and other awesome creatures that demonstrate that Australia has been punching well above its weight in churning out record-breaking beasts that should humble the rest of Creation.
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