Dr Simon Pollard will talk about how spiders have ruled his life and share some of his favourite natural history stories, including one about a wasp that does brain surgery on a cockroach and turns it into a zombie!
Biography
Simon is Adjunct Professor of Science Communication at the University of Canterbury. He is also a spider biologist and award winning writer and photographer. Simon has travelled widely unravelling the lives of spiders, as a scientist, writer, photographer and documentary advisor. In 2016 he was the external science advisor to Te Papa and Weta Workshop on a $5 million exhibition on bugs.
Simon wrote a book, The Genius of Bugs, to complement the exhibition and it was a finalist in the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. He has been an advisor on a number of natural history documentaries, including three of the BBC Attenborough series. One of these, Planet Earth, filmed a sequence on his research on fishing spiders in Borneo.
Currently, he is writing a book, commissioned by Te Papa Press, on New Zealand natural history for younger readers.
Cost: $13.00
Location: Canterbury Workers' Educational Association, 59 Gloucester Street, Christchurch
For further information and to register: www.eventfinda.co.nz/2018/science-series/christchurch
Useful link
Find out more about Simon here: www.tepapa.govt.nz/about/te-papa-press/our-authors/simon-pollard-biography-and-interview
