EThekwini Municipality’s Natural Science Museum will host the 6th Magqubu Ntombela – Ian Player Annual Lecture to be presented by Professor Leon Claessens of the Department of Biology, College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, United States of America, on 23 September 2015.
The title of the presentation is: “New insights from Durban’s Dodo: lessons from an icon of extinction”.
The content of Prof. Claessens’s talk will be based on his recent research on the extinct Dodo bird. A skeleton of this bird is currently housed at the Durban Natural Science Museum. The Durban skeleton was purchased almost a century ago and is one of only two near-complete skeletons that still exists, the other being housed at the Mauritius Institute.
The work of Prof. Claessens and his colleagues, particularly through high-resolution three-dimensional laser surface-scanning techniques, has revealed the unique importance of the specimen in our understanding of this remarkable bird.
Durban Image: 2010 Durban Sardine Run