Wells Annual Lecture 2024

The Wells Annual Lecture is an event created to celebrate the life and achievements of Professor Rod Wells, which included the discovery of the Naracoorte fossil caves and the development of the Palaeontology Lab Group at Flinders University. 

This year, we are excited to announce that the speaker for the night will be Senior Scientist and Curator of Palaeontology for the Queensland Museum, Dr Scott Hocknull. 

Prehistoric Queensland: come for the dinosaurs, stay for the stories.

2024 marks 30 years in the palaeontology game for me, not counting my childhood obsession with fossils. I would like to take you on a personalised tour of prehistoric Queensland, from my first paper and museum job at age 16 through to some of the latest discoveries. The tour will encompass much of Queensland, as a chronological recollection of adventures spanning the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ and ‘Age of Mammals’. From Triassic bottom-dwelling scum-suckers, to Eocene oil-beasts to unique Pleistocene rainforest and tropical megafauna. Ok, and yes, many of the coolest, biggest, meanest dinosaurs ever to walk the Earth!..well Australia anyway. There’s a lot to cover and so much more to discover. This is all great, but, and it’s a big but, what is the relevance of all this awesome palaeontology now, and into the future? Reflecting on how ‘life as a palaeontologist’ has significantly changed for me over these 30 years, I’ll explore perception versus reality and what a future in Australian palaeontology might look like.

The talk will be followed by a networking event and a panel discussion.