Announcing the 10th Tetrapod Zoology Convention

On December 1st, 2nd and 3rd 2023, the 10th Tetrapod Zoology Convention – TetZooCon – happens at Bush House, King’s College, The Strand, London. With just over a month to go (yikes), now is time to buy a ticket and consider joining us. It’s going to be the biggest TetZooCon so far, and hopefully the best. Here’s a rundown of what’s due to happen…

Caption: a montage of things relevant to TetZooCon 2023. The books Ancient Sea Reptiles, Mesozoic Art and Locked In Time - and others - will be on sale, and talks on cassowaries will be happening. At far right: Bush House, our venue. Images: cassowary from Todd Green; others Darren Naish, Locked In Time via Columbia University Press.

Schedule and timetable. TetZooCon 2023 kicks off on the evening of Friday 1st December with the panel event Engaging with Extinctions - Past, Present & Future. A drinks reception and registration also happens on that Friday. From Saturday morning onwards, stalls are present throughout the meeting whereby people sell merch, books and more, and show art. I, personally, have a select number of animal figures and natural history books on sale. I expect most sales to occur via card machines as is typical for the modern age.

TetZooCon has reached the point in its life where it now has to involve parallel sessions throughout. Alas, gone are the days when we can all sit together and see all the presentations. This means that you’ll need to pay attention to the timetable if there are specific talks or events you want to attend. Saturday and Sunday are the main ‘event days’, involving a series of talks, on-stage panel discussions and at least two workshops. This year, we welcome cosplay (something that had a soft launch last year; honorary mention again of Rebecca Groom and Meghan Jenkinson, the instigators). We recommend that cosplay is limited to Saturday afternoon (post-lunch), and an on-stage judging – with prizes – happens at around 6pm on Saturday. It’s followed by an art exhibition and drinks reception.

Marine reptile extravaganza. Due to the publication of my Natural History Museum/Smithsonian Books book Ancient Sea Reptiles, TetZooCon 2023 is partly focused on marine reptiles. I will be selling and signing copies, and giving a talk about Mesozoic marine reptiles too. And I will be joined by a list of colleagues: we have Judyth Sassoon, Richard Forrest and Luke Muscutt talking plesiosaurs, and Emily Swaby and Dean Lomax talking ichthyosaurs.

Luke is bringing the robotic plesiosaur he’s been working on, a world exclusive, and Dean will be selling and signing copies of his book Locked in Time. All marine reptile speakers will engage in the panel event Marine reptile science: problem areas, and… where next?

Caption: Luke Muscutt with robot plesiosaur. Image provided by Luke Muscutt.

Other talks on Saturday involve fossil dolphins (Amber Coste: Daunting Dentitions - Inside the Mouths of Dolphins That Bit the Dust), sci-comm and outreach (Hana Ayoob: Audiences and Other Animals) and herpetology (Steve Allain: On the Trail of Midwife Toads in Great Britain).

Palaeoart and media events. In contrast to previous years, our palaeoart session isn’t so much of a session, but a constantly running series of events happening in parallel to the rest of the meeting. Luis Rey will be leading a discussion – A Discussion on the Past and Future of Palaeoart – and James Pascoe is hosting a Paint-a-Pliosaur Event on the Saturday. Joschua Knüppe is also running a grand show-and-tell event on Sunday.

Caption: pliosaur models by James Pascoe. A good number of them will be in attendance at TetZooCon 2023. Images: James Pascoe.

Sunday lunchtime also sees a screening of 1925’s The Lost World, introduced and chaired by Dave Hone, who’ll also be providing commentary. The movie is 106 minutes long, and shouldn’t overlap with the events happening post-lunch on the day. They include my Prehistoric Planet-themed event (which is happening in the same room as the palaeoart meetings) and Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s talk Things We See In The Dark: From Shadows on Cave Walls to (Homo) Naledi In the Sky.

Cassowaries, crows, crocodiles. In other events, we’re joined on the Sunday by Todd Green, who’ll be talking about his research on cassowaries and the cassowary research renaissance. This is followed by a cassowary-themed panel event in which Todd and I are joined by film-makers Kerrie and AJ Dodd. Also appearing on the Sunday are Jennifer Campbell-Smith on Cautious Crows: How to Trick Corvids Into Letting You Study Them and Evon Hekkala on Maneaters, Mummies and Madagascar; Sacred and Secret Tales from Cryptic Crocodiles.

Sunday ends with our special guest, Nigel Marven, who’ll be in attendance for part of the afternoon and also giving the talk Filming Adventures With Dinosaurs and Other Reptiles. As usual, we end with the TetZooCon quiz, again with prizes.

It should be obvious that we’re talking here about a lot of stuff, and that this is going to be a packed meeting. Tickets have already been on sale for a few weeks and the number we’ve sold indicates that this is set to be the biggest TetZooCon so far (which is in keeping with the long-term trend). At this point, masking is down to personal preference. I would say that masking might be wise given current concerns about new covid strains, but a mask mandate is not in operation.

Ok. For more information (including a map, the timetable, and reviews of previous years) visit the TetZooCon page here, and that’s where tickets are available too. Things are coming together as planned, but even now there are things yet to be confirmed or finalized. For breaking news and developments, keep an eye on the TetZooCon facebook page. This will probably be the last update I provide here at Tet Zoo, so I look forward to seeing you in London in December!

For previous articles on TetZooMCon and TetZooCon, see…

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