Every now and then, the Museum receives visitors from around the world who pay a visit to our Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC) for their research. To share a glimpse of this vibrant research community, we’d like to introduce some of our friends to you! Last year, from 27 Nov to 10 Dec 2022, we were privileged to host Prof Shane Ahyong. 

What started out as simply turning rocks over at beaches to find crabs has turned into an exciting career for Prof Shane. He is currently the Senior Principal Research Scientist and Head of the Marine Invertebrates department at the Australian Museum. His research interests lie in marine and freshwater crustaceans, such as mantis shrimps, crabs, and crayfish. 

Prof Shane using a microscope in his work on mantis shrimp specimens

This time round, Prof Shane visited the Museum to examine ZRC’s crustacean specimens. Working with our advisor, Prof Peter Ng, and crustaceans curator, Dr Jose Christopher Mendoza, they undertook several projects together, including studying deep-sea crabs obtained from overseas expeditions. Prof was also here to finalise information regarding a new spider crab species with several of our crustacean researchers! 

Prof Shane holding his mantis shrimp model

Our extensive crustacean collections also allowed him to gather more data on mantis shrimps and revise specimen data for rare and unusual crabs from Australia. 

Prof Shane has been working closely with the Museum’s researchers for a long time; he visits the Museum almost every year! We are always happy to support friends like Prof Shane and look forward to seeing him again soon!