Club Meetings
Boston Malacological Club meetings are open to members, guests, and to the general public. You do not have to be a member to enjoy the meeting and listen to presentations. After a brief business discussion, a special invited guest or club member presents a topic of interest. Free refreshments are available and there are usually mollusk specimens or collections for examination. Meetings are also available as online with Zoom. The Zoom link is sent only to club members. If you are a non-member a link can be emailed if you contact the webmaster or other appropriate club officer.
Meetings are held in Room 101 in the Harvard Museum of Natural History (Museum of Comparative Zoology, 26 Oxford Street) at Harvard University. Unless otherwise scheduled all meetings are on the first Tuesday of the month from October through May beginning at 7:30 PM. The meeting room is often available at 7:00 PM and attendees may arrive early to view collections of chat. If the room is in use by Harvard students please do not enter the room early or disturb the class or seminar session. The meeting schedule and topics are given below along with a map to the meeting room and parking instructions at Harvard University.
Club Meeting and Event Schedule 2023 - 2024
2023
10/3 - Organizing for the upcoming year - George Buckley; Presentation by Michael Lafosse and Richard Alexander - The Art, Craft, and Science of Nature-themed Origami (please summary of presentation below)
10/22 - Zoom presentation, 1:00 PM; Charlotte and Elliot Michaelson Memorial Lecture by Dr. Helen Scales - Career Path from Marine Biologist to Natural History Writer (please see summary below)
11/7 - Tour of the Malacology Collection of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology guided by Dr. Jennifer Trimble, Curatorial Associate and Collections Manager in Malacology
12/5 - Cigar Box exhibit and presentations by Mal Club members; theme - “Smokin” - your favorite “smokin” shells and stories
2024
1/2 Presentation by Dr. José H. Leal, Science Director and Curator and Sam Ankerson, Executive Director, Bailey-Mathews National Shell Museum - Current Developments at the Bailey-Mathews National Shell Museum; Zoom presentation only (no January in-person meeting); presentation link will be sent to members
2/6 - Presentation by Jake Stout - Exploration and Mollusks of the Red Sea
3/5 - Presentation by Sy Montgomery - Natural History Exploration, Observations and Writing
4/2 - Presentation by Andrea Dec - Ecology of Phillipine Mollusks
5/7 - Annual Fund Raising Auction -auctioneer George Buckley
Directions to Mal Club Meetings
Enter the garage (52 Oxford Street) by going into entrance at stoplight at intersection of Oxford Street and Everett Street. Stop at kiosk and tell parking attendant you are here for the Malacology (shell) club meeting. He/she will give you a pass which you must swipe at the gate to get into the garage. There is no charge. Park on floor P1. You must take the pass with you as you need to swipe it to get back into the garage when you leave. Take the elevator to the ground floor and turn right when you exit the elevator. Go straight out the back (turn right) and walk behind the science buildings to the museum. Enter at the first set of steps on the front of the museum.
Highlights of Meeting Presentations
The Art, Craft, and Science of Nature-themed Origami
Boston Malacological Club - October 3, 2023
Presented by Michael LaFosse and Richard Alexander of ORIGAMIDO Studio
Richard Alexander and I were delighted to share a bit of our 30+ years of experience in creating environmental-awareness and natural history education exhibits for libraries, schools, and museums worldwide. Our college training as biologists gave us the skills of observation of the naturalist – so essential to the artist. We had to become “all things origami to all people.” Our bread and butter is designing folded “manipulatives” for teaching math and geometry in the classroom. Designing and publishing has been a constant activity, as has producing props for television and print ads. We have also folded high/low temperature-resistant plastic parts for weather satellites, but as Biologists, creating original paper-folded designs for environmental awarenessat museums has been the most rewarding. Michael and Richard design original origami works from simple to complex in various styles.
Above are two examples, now on display in Salem, MA, at the Peabody Essex Museum’s new exhibit, Bats! Michael designed and folded each from a single sheet with no cuts from Richard’s and Michael’s custom, handmade papers. The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) exhibit, Bats! features interpretive natural history, art, and cultural displays about bats (exhibit runs through July 2024). There is even a small colony of live bats in the show! The hundreds of origami bats represent very different origami styles. The simplest is the Happy Flappy Bat, which Mal Club members folded along with us during the presentation. Hundreds of more complex, roosting, and flying Happy Good-Luck Bats act as the PEM exhibit mascot. In addition to the origami bats shown on the previous page, PEM also displays Michael’s Vampire Bat - a free-form-fold - sketch. The other origami model we taught at the October meeting was a folded form of the Nautilus’ spiral. The folding method represents a satisfying iterative algorithm of similar polygons growing in size at a constant rate. A marvel of natural geometry echoed by origami.
Richard L Alexander and Michael LaFosse
Photo by Alan Grant
2023 Charlotte and Elliot Michaelson Memorial Lecture - Career Path from Marine Biologist to Natural History Writer
Boston Malacological club special event - Sunday, October 22, 2023 -- 1:00 PM by Zoom
Presented by Dr. Helen Scales
This special event honors long-time BMC members Charlotte and Elliot Michaelson, featuring award-winning author and marine biologist Helen Scales, who discussed her books and path from a marine research scientist to award-winning author and scientific storyteller who joined us by ZOOM from England. Her many award-winning books include the molluscan masterpiece, Spirals in Time: the secrete Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells, Eye of the Shoal: a fish watchers guide to the ocean, The Brilliant Abyss: exploring the majestic hidden deep sea life of the Oceans and the looming threat that imperils it, Poseiden's Steed: the story of seahorses and many others.
The Art, Craft and Science of Observing and Writing about Nature, and Stories from the Field
Boston Malacological Club - March 5, 2024
Presented Sy Montgomery and Matt Patterson
George Buckley introduced our guest speakers, Sy Montgomery, and Matt Patterson. George noted that Sy has over thirty books, with her 36th soon to be published. Her current books for both adults and children include How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals; The Octopus Scientists: Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk; The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness; Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea and Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell about which Sy and Matt presented at this meeting.
Sy began by saying that Of Time and Turtles was a "COVID book," mainly researched and written during the pandemic. Sy explained how she was "awe-struck by these creatures" and described many interesting facts about turtles, including that some glow in the dark, some climb trees, and some can run on land at 15 miles per hour. In The Soul of an Octopus, Sy addresses the question of consciousness, but in her book about turtles, she wanted to address another great philosophic question involving time. She noted that turtles had been around since the time of dinosaurs, and Matt noted the oldest documented age of a turtle was 288 years. Sy added that some turtles still lay eggs at the age of 190 years.
Sy and Matt then described their experiences with the Turtle Rescue League (turtlerescueleague.com). The organization is located in Southbridge, Massachusetts, and helps "broken creatures be made whole." Together, they worked with Natasha Nowick, President and Facilities Director, and several damaged turtles who are long-term residents who became "Ambassador Animals," including "Turtzilla," "Chunky Chip," and "Fire Chief."
Sy and Matt closed their presentation by discussing their forthcoming books. Sy’s Secrets of the Octopus explores amazing new discoveries about Octopus and will be published on March 19 in concert with National Geographic Society, which has also collaborated on an upcoming television program about Octopus, and Matt’s re-release of Freshwater Fish of the Northeast, a book he illustrated with text by his father, David A. Patterson, due in April. Daniel and others had an engaging set of questions about turtles and octopuses and stories of their own turtle encounters. The Club thanked Sy and Matt for their presentation with an extended round of applause, after which they signed books for members.