Join Reef Check Australia and friends at The Bearded Lady for an evening of discovery, inspiration and appreciation of our local marine, coastal and catchment environments.

This month we'll hear from Dr. Miriam Henze, who will introduce us to the superpowers and secrets of the mantis shrimp - some of the most violent and beautiful creatures in the sea. Being ferocious fighters, they can strike with the same acceleration as a gunshot, making the water boil and producing a destructive shockwave. Learn more about spearers and smashers and how they evolved. Get to know caring partners, devoted mums, and bizarre, transparent larvae called ‘spiny balloons’, ‘flying saucers’, and ‘gnome hats’ drifting in the ocean currents. 


Miriam is a researcher at the Queensland Brain Institute of the University of Queensland. She studied at the University of Tübingen in Germany, earned her PhD at the University of Zürich in Switzerland and did a postdoc at Lund University in Sweden, before finally escaping the long Scandinavian winters by moving down under. Her scientific career started with a project on the Vietnamese leaf turtle, a small reptile with astonishing eyes. She then investigated the nocturnal foraging behaviour of the Grey mouse lemur in Madagascar, before her interest shifted to vision in arthropods (crabs, insects, spiders and alike) and their close relatives, onychophorans (velvet worms).


18:00 Bar opens

18:30 Grab a seat (they go fast!)

18:45 Talk kicks off

19:30 Pizza and good sea-minded conversation

Entry is $3 (which gets you pizza at the end).

As the venue is a bar, under-18s are most welcome but must be accompanied by an adult. And a 5 year gap is necessary, ie. 17-yr-old cannot be accompanied by an 18-yr-old.

For more information, please contact [email protected] or visit our Facebook Event Page to RSVP.

This initiative is hosted by Reef Check Australia, and proudly supported by Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grants, with amazing in-kind support from The Bearded Lady.