Mammalogist awarded lifetime honour

Professor Colin Groves from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology has been awarded a Lifetime Honorary Membership to the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM). 

He unexpectedly received the award at the ASM’s 93rd Annual Meeting and Conference held in Philadelphia.

“The whole thing utterly took me by surprise – it took me a while to realise who they were talking about,” says Professor Groves.

The ASM is the world’s leading organisation for mammalogists. It’s rare for people to be given lifetime honorary membership, making the award all the more prestigious.

Professor Groves has been a member of the Society since 1967. While he completed his doctorate in London, Professor Groves has spent the vast majority of his almost fifty year career at ANU, where he has worked since 1974.

A prolific publisher in his field, Professor Groves’ work includes two major books on taxonomy: Primate Taxonomy in 2001 and Ungulate Taxonomy in 2011 (co-authored with Peter Grubb). These two books are the culmination of the work he’s done throughout his career.

One of the projects he is currently working on is a complete image library of mammals for the ASM.

Image: Professor Colin Groves with the medal he received from the ASM.