CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–The IBA meeting has now ended and, as this is posted, I should be winging my way home across the Atlantic. It was a fantastic experience. This is a unique organization, of which I’m now proud to be a member of council. It is a combination of paleontologists and biologists who share a passion for the Phylum Bryozoa in all its manifestations. We had 77 oral presentations and dozens of posters spread among 80 participants, including students, academics, museum scientists, and very keen citizen scientists. The “international” component is taken very seriously: of the 80 people present, 27 countries were represented.
All the sessions were held in the Palazzo delle Scienze building shown at the top of the page. We shared it with the regular student body, so it was a lively place. Directly above is the back wall of our meeting room with images of famous scientists who lived in Italy, from the Greeks to the 20th Century.
Italians leave no ceiling unpainted. I’m not sure who the people are depicted above us, except that Amerigo Vespucci must be the one holding a map of the Americas. This room certainly makes you feel part of the international scientific enterprise.
Here is one of our participants, Kevin Tilbrook, giving a presentation. All our communications were in English. Imagine the challenge of talking in your second or third language with someone else doing the same thing. I am continually amazed by the language skills here.
My talk was on Friday morning, June 14. My first slide is shown above. My friend Paul Taylor and I examined two purported bryozoans common in the Paleozoic and showed that they were certainly not members of that phylum, despite some superficial resemblances.
This is our conclusion slide. As you can see, it is relatively easy to say what something is not, but quite another to say what it is!
The IBA conference dinner is always a big event. This one was among the most spectacular. We had dinner in the historical Palazzo Biscari. This is a view from the terrace towards the central Duomo complex.
The ballroom is a Baroque fantasy. To complete the image, dinner was preceded by a choral performance from a Sicilian choir tucked back in the alcove. They sang many, many pieces, including some national favorites from countries represented among us.
Our meeting was a spectacular success in terms of the science shared and learned, and the Sicilian cultural experiences. Thank you very much to organizers Antonietta Rosso and Rossana Sanfilippo from the University of Catania!
