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Very good news for myself and my A. R. Wallace Correspondence Project (WCP)! The agreement for the grant which will fund the project for 2 years and 9 months was officially signed today and work on the project is due to restart on December 1st! The funder is the John Templeton Foundation and the charity which will host the grant is the Charles Darwin Trust (CDT).
Singaporean spider expert Joseph Koh sent the following request:
Friula wallacei (photo below) -- This spectacular araneid is related to Gasteracantha and other members of the subfamily Gasteracanthinae. It is noteworthy for two reasons:
(a) It was collected in Sarawak by Alfred Russel Wallace himself;
(b) It has not been collected since, and therefore the specimen at Oxford University is the only specimen in the world.
Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald
[Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest]
10 November 2017 – 29 March 2018
Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak)
I have just read a recently published article by Carey McCormack entitled "Collection and Discovery: Indigenous Guides and Alfred Russel Wallace in Southeast Asia, 1854-1862". Sadly her knowledge about biology, natural history collecting and taxonomy seems to be low. Here is a selection of some the statements she made in her article (my comments follow in []):
At the conclusion of the Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary Celebration, in Autumn 2015, Richard Milner, Associate in Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, produced and edited excellent special Wallace Issues of Natural History magazine and Skeptic magazine, both of which are now available to all as free downloads.
On October 14th 2017, after delivering the Wallace Memorial Fund's 4th A. R. Wallace Lecture at University College London, Dr James Costa was awarded the Wallace Memorial Fund's silver Wallace Medal for his outstanding contributions to Wallace scholarship. This Sterling Silver medal is the Wallace Fund's highest award.
A video of Costa's excellent lecture "Convincing Lyell: Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, and the Great Transmutation Debate" can be seen HERE.
Saturday 14th October 2017
14.30–16.00 (please arrive at 14.15)
Darwin Lecture Theatre (Darwin Building B40 LT),
University College London, Gower St., Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6XA
Today is the 159th anniversary of the reading of the Darwin-Wallace paper on evolution by natural selection at the Linnean Society of London - an event which was to change biology, and the way Homo sapiens views itself, forever!
Australia's ABC Radio broadcast a 22 minute interview with George Beccaloni on the June 18 2017 - the 159th anniversary of the arrival of Wallace's essay on natural selection at Charles Darwin's house in Kent, England. The packet containing the essay plus a covering letter, was posted from the small 'Spice Island' of Ternate in Indonesia in March or possibly April of 1858, arriving at Darwin’s house in Downe on 18 June 1858.
