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MABA ANNUAL EVENT 2025
 

The next MABA annual event will be held in Melbourne, Victoria over the weekend 28–30 March 2025. It will be held in the hall of The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, 1 Gardenia Street, Blackburn, 3130 (www.fncv.org.au), which is close to the Blackburn railway station, about 17 km east of the Melbourne CBD. The event will include a field trip for light trapping for moths, series of talks including a keynote presentation by Dr Robert Hoare from Landcare Research New Zealand, a banquet dinner, and a moth workshop.

There will be four activities as follows.

Light trapping for moths: Friday, 28 March 2025, 7.00–10.30 pm AEST
This activity will be held at the Pound Bend Reserve, Warrandyte State Park, and organised by the Entomological Society of Victoria Inc. (ESV). You can either drive directly to the main picnic/parking area and meet us at 7 pm or, if you need transport, meet at the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) hall, 1 Gardenia Street, Blackburn at 6 pm for a lift.  We recommend that you wear long pants, long sleeve shirt, sturdy footwear with good grip, hat, and sunglasses (to avoid damage from high intensity light sources). It would also be good to bring ear plugs, torch, insect repellent, and food and water. Because the activity will be run by the Entomological Society of Victoria, they require that all participants attending complete the outdoor medical event form. You will be required to carry this form on you at all times during the field trip. The information in this form will only be used in case of an accident or medical emergency. On arrival you must register your attendance with the ESV Events Office, sign the attendance register and demonstrate that you have completed the form. Before the light trapping activity commences, the Events Officer will give a safety briefing to all attendees. The activity will be coordinated by Marlene Walter and Anthony Kurek, with assistance from Axel Kallies, Belinda Raymond, Kurtise Templeton,  Mengjie Jin, Peter Marriott and Peter Carwardine.

Talks and AGM: Saturday, 29 March 2025, 8.30 am–5.30 pm
This activity will be held in the FNCV hall, 1 Gardenia Street, Blackburn, VIC 3130. The hall is close to the Blackburn railway station (~2 mins walk). There is a carpark next to the hall that we can use. There will be opportunities to buy second handbooks on Lepidoptera (up to 50% discount) from the MABA book collection. Dr Robert Hoare from Landcare Research New Zealand will present a keynote address entitled "The lure of the Siren Bewitcher: hidden riches amongst New Zealand’s depauperate". This presentation will be followed by a series of shorter talks by members (download program here) and then the AGM.
 

Presentations. If you are planning on giving a presentation, please let us know the title of your talk and bring a copy of your talk on a USB stick so we can upload it to the FNCV computer. Make sure your talk does not exceed 15 mins, including questions.

Banquet dinner: Saturday, 29 March 2025, 5.30–9.30 pm
The annual dinner will be held at Enrik's Restaurant, 25 Railway Rd, Blackburn, which is about 5 mins walk from the FNCV hall. The cost for the dinner is $45 excluding drinks and sweets. The restaurant has a bar where you can purchase alcoholic beverages, tea/coffee, and deserts. You are welcome to bring a guest (partner/friend) for an additional cost of $55.

Moth workshop: Sunday, 30 March 2025, 9.30 am–12.30 pm
This activity will be held in the FNCV hall, Blackburn. It will involve a combination of processing moths (pinning and setting) and identification of moths to family level. The maximum number of people that can participate in this event is 24, although others are welcome to attend as observers/demonstrators.

Registrations. To attend this event, you must register by completing and submitting the online registration form here. We need to know the exact number of people attending each activity, including the dinner social function, for catering and insurance purposes. The hall can only hold up to 70 people and since members from the Entomological Society of Victoria and Invertebrate Group of the FNCV will be attending, it will be a matter of first in first served! The cost of the event is $35 only or $80 if wish to attend the event and banquet dinner function. Guests for the banquet dinner is $55. The registration fee will cover your meals (morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea) during the talks on Saturday and workshop on Sunday. Deadline for registration is 31 December 2024.

Registration forms are accessible here: https://form.jotform.com/241687337728873

Accommodation. There is accommodation at Nunawading Motor Inn, 245 Whitehorse Rd, Nunawading, VIC 3131. The motel is located approximately 1.4 km from the FNCV hall (~ 20 mins walk). Phone: +61 3 9877 6511. https://www.nunawadingmotorinn.com.au/

There are other options for accommodation along the Blackburn railway line closer to the Melbourne CBD.

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MABA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2024

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Evolution of the Australian Lepidoptera: survival in an arid continent
 

Dr Cathy Byrne (Senior Curator of Zoology, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) presented an intriguing and stimulating talk on the evolution of the diverse Australian Lepidoptera fauna, from its early beginnings in a moist Gondwanan environment to the present time in which it thrives in a dry, mostly arid and isolated continent. The Lepidoptera are a megadiverse order of insects, with an estimated 180,000 species globally, which represents 10% of all animals. Cathy highlighted some of the key innovations, adaptions and life history strategies that have led to the remarkable success of this diverse group of insects, including scales, proboscis, epiphysis and prolegs. The scales are found only in moths and butterflies, and they provide insulation, repel water, and the means by which they can escape from natural enemies (e.g. through camouflage, warning patterns, deception). Scales are also used in aerodynamics and mate recognition. The proboscis is a coiled tongue that allows moths and butterflies to access water and high energy food (e.g. nectar of flowers); it was probably an important innovation that led to the pollination and diversification of flowering plants. The epiphysis is a structure on the foreleg that is used to clean the antennae and possibly the proboscis, and it is unique to the Lepidoptera. The prolegs are found only in the caterpillar stage and are important in allowing the larvae to cling onto foliage and stems and other substrates whilst feeding. The Australian Lepidoptera fauna has many unique elements, a high level of endemicity, and groups that are well-adapted to a dry environment. Cathy summarised some of the early ‘basal’ lineages in Australia, as well as other more recent groups that are either unique to Australia or have been highly successful following the separation of the Australian continent from Southern Gondwana (Antarctica-South America) 35 mya, the drying of the continent, and concomitant radiation of eucalypts and acacias during the Neogene. She concluded by emphasizing the importance of museum collections and taxonomy in documenting our knowledge of biodiversity. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MABA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2023
 

The inaugural MABA annual event was held at CSIRO Black Mountain Library and the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG), Canberra, ACT, Australia, over the weekend 3–5 November 2023. Below we have a reflection on the weekend written by our secretary, Michael Braby.

 

Six different activities were held over the weekend, which were attended by a total of 61 members and friends. It was wonderful to have six international members from New Zealand, USA and Europe attend the event, highlighting the fact that MABA is now truly an international organisation.

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The event kicked off with a social function and dinner on Friday night at the Black Mountain Library at which guests were welcomed by Axel Kallies (our new President), Doug Hilton (former inaugural President of MABA and now Chief Executive of CSIRO), David Yeates (Director of the Australian National Insect Collection), and Anne-Marie Slattery (Metadata and Discovery Librarian at CSIRO). Federica Turco (Collection Manager of ANIC) gave a short presentation on progress and developments with the new ANIC building, which is expected to be completed by early 2024. Michael Braby then talked about the scientific art exhibition on display based on art works curated in the rare book collection of the library that are not normally viewed by the public. The display included a series of superb original water colour paintings by several notable artists, including Neville Cayley, published in Waterhouse (1932) What Butterfly is That?; George Browning, published in Barrett and Burns (1951) Butterflies of Australia and New Guinea; Ninon Geier, published in Common and Waterhouse (1972) Butterflies of Australia; Sybil Monteith, published in the revised edition of Common and Waterhouse (1981); and Frank Nanninga, published in CSIRO (1970) The Insects of Australia.

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Following dinner, about half of the group headed off to the ANBG to observe, photograph or collect moths at several light traps that were set up by Donald Hobern, Glenn Cocking and Andreas Zwick at the western end of the gardens near Black Mountain Reserve. A range of different light-traps were set up to showcase the methods commonly used to study and sample moths. It was a good night for moths and many species were recorded.

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The highlight of the event was undoubtedly the 20 talks presented by members at the ANBG Theatrette on Saturday. The opening keynote address was delivered by Professor David Lohman (Chair of Biology, City College of New York, USA) who literally blew the roof off with a stimulating and entertaining talk entitled “biogeography and evolution of Indo-Australian butterflies” that covered an array of fascinating topics in relation to past climate changes in SE Asia and mainland New Guinea, including diversification of Delias – reputed to be the largest butterfly genus in the world – and the astonishing mimicry seen in Elymnias. He also touched on Wolbachia in Melanitis.

 

Three student members (Georgina Binns, Siwanon Paphatmethin, Ethan Beaver) gave outstanding talks on their PhD projects, and all jointly won the inaugural Ted Edwards Memorial Award for the best student presentation. Georgina Binns (and Chris Müller) also won the free dinner prize for guessing the correct number of eggs and/or species in a photo, which comprised a single cohort of 170 eggs of the pierid butterfly Delias harpalyce. Marianne Horak closed the day with a moving and fitting tribute to Ted Edwards, who touched the lives of so many of us. Lynette Aitchison kindly managed the large number of books on butterflies and moths for sale, and even sold several books to passers-by! The Annual General Meeting was held at the Theatrette on Saturday afternoon, and ‘conference’ dinner was held at the China Tea Club in North Lyneham.

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The butterfly and larval host plant identification tour at the ANBG was run by Suzi Bond and Steve Holliday on the following Sunday morning. The activity was well attended, but the poor weather precluded seeing the many species that typically fly at this time of the year, and the only highlights were a nectaring Graphium macleayanum and a clump of mistletoe on which the immature stages of Delias harpalyce were found. The moth workshop, run by Axel Kallies, was held in Banksia Building at ANBG during Sunday afternoon. The workshop focussed on relaxing and preparing specimens (collected from the light traps) and how to properly pin and set them in order to establish a scientific reference collection. Participants worked with either macro or micromoths. It was interesting to hear all the different methods used by the various experts.

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