Meetings
Monthly meetings are held on the Third Thursday of each month from September through June at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. These meetings begin at 7:45 PM and usually conclude around 9:30 PM. Refreshments are provided by club members. In addition, a local shell dealer usually has shells for sale.
Below is a listing of recent and upcoming meetings:
September 20th 2007 - Dr. Ellen Strong, curator in the mollusk department of the Smithsonian Institution, gave a talk titled “New taxa, new characters and the quest for unconventional cerithiforms.” She discussed recent expeditions to the Philippines and Vanuatu which have employed innovative collecting strategies and targeted poorly sampled habitats to produce a wealth of material of minute and/or poorly known gastropods. Of particular scientific interest are a number of species currently or formerly allied to the Superfamily Cerithioidea - Abyssochrysidae, Plesiotrochidae, Argyropeza, Paradiala, etc. Beyond the discovery of new species and genera, these large collections are providing the basis for reinterpreting our understanding of diversity of these lineages and to reassess their placement in the gastropod tree of life.
October 18th 2007 – The club provided each attendee with a sample of “grunge” comprised of tiny shells collected by tangle nets from the Philippines. Fellow members and staff from the Malacology department provided identification assistance, sources, and some microscopes. Participants were to allowed to keep their trove of molluscan treasures.
November 15th 2007 - Dr. Warren Allmon gave a talk about "Spherical fossil snails from Alabama (and elsewhere)". Dr. Allmon is the Director of the Paleontological Research Institution and the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York. Warren and always makes fossils fun.
December 20th 2007 - Annual holiday party featuring culinary delights brought by members. In addition Sue Hobbs had for sale a wide variety of shells to help finish off everyones holiday shopping list. There was also a Silent Auction of special books.
January 17th 2008 - Mike Severns from Maui gave a talk about evolution and diversity of Hawaiian Achatinella land snails.
February 21st 2008 – Meeting featured images of the recent shell shows at the academy along with those formerly held at Drexel. It was a fun evening of reminiscence.
March 20th 2008 – Our very own Paul Callomon gave an extremely interesting and entertaining talk entitled Primoriye – The Russian Far East. The talk revolved around two trips that Paul took to Vladivostok in 1998 and 1999. Paul was living in Japan at the time. While both trips were to Vladivostok, Paul also had the opportunity to visit the towns of Livadia and Anna, and the Vostok Marine Station.
April 17th 2008 - Kyle Bennett, a Ph.D. student at Rutgers University, will give a talk on "Multiple cryptic species of the scorched mussel in the Florida Keys".
May 15th 2008 - Annual auction of shell specimens, pictures, books and other shell-related articles to raise money for the club. Non-members welcome. Viewing starts at 6:00 pm, bidding at 7:00. Wine and light food will be provided compliments of members and club.
June 19th 2008 - Dr. Chris Meyer from the Smithsonian Institution will give a talk - topic to be announced at a later date.
August ?? 2008 - Annual club picnic.
September 18th 2008 - Dr. Erika Iyengar from Muhlenberg College will give a talk on "Suspension feeding and kleptoparasitism in hairy snails of the genus Trichotropis."