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Friday 9 September 2011

An academic symposium comes to Lyme Regis

The Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA) is a prestigious international academic conference that is held once a year. This year the conference will be based in Lyme Regis to celebrate the bicentenary of the discovery by Joseph and Mary Anning of the first ichthyosaur to come to the attention of science. There will be 115 delegates from 18 different countries attending, many of whom are leading experts in their specialist fields whether that be marine reptiles, flying reptiles, dinosaurs, fish or mammals.

The conference will take place adjacent to Lyme Regis Museum at the Marine Theatre next week, 12th to 17th September 2011, and full details can be found at the SVCPA website.

While the main conference programme is aimed at professional academics, there will be free evening lectures as follows:

Tuesday 13th September, 6 pm: The end-Triassic mass extinction and its role in resetting ichthyosaur and dinosaur evolution, by Michael Benton (you can read an earlier blog post on this subject).

Wednesday 14th September, 6 pm: Scelidosaurus from Lyme Bay, the world's first complete dinosaur, by David Norman (you can read an earlier blog post on this subject).

Friday 16th September, 6 pm: Pterosaurs: the Leathery Winged Revolution, by Mark Witton.

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