The Verrall Lecture is an annual public event organised by the Royal Entomological Society. It is open to all, free to attend and is usually given at the Natural History Museum, London.
The Lecture takes place on the first Wednesday in March to coincide with the Annual Meeting of the Verrall Association of Entomologists, the Verrall Supper, begun in 1887 by G.H. Verrall and now organised by the Entomological Club.
In 2021, RES joined with the Amateur Entomologists’ Society to organise the first Young Verrall lecture, with the same lecturer speaking to a younger audience. This takes place the Saturday following the main Verrall Lecture.
Verrall Lecturers and affiliations at the time of their lecture:
2025 Professor Iain Couzin (University of Konstanz, Germany, Princeton University, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior) – Talk title TBC. Visit the event page
2024 Professor Rebecca Kilner (University of Cambridge) – Simpson’s question: How does behaviour influence evolution? Visit the event page.
2023 Dr Edgar Turner (University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge) – Managing tropical ecosystems for insect biodiversity. Visit the event page.
2022 Prof. Camille Parmesan (CNRS Station for Experimental and Theoretical Ecology (SETE, in Moulis, France)) – Hot off the Press from IPCC: Insects in a Warming World. Lecture given via zoom, recorded & uploaded to our YouTube channel, also available on the 2022 Verrall event page
2021 Dr Erica McAlister (Natural History Museum London) – A Fascination of Flies (lecture given via zoom) – Video Exclusive – for Royal Entomological Society Members & Fellows
2020 Prof. Charles Godfray (University of Oxford) – Driving Ambition: Can and Should We Use Gene Drive to Knock Out the Major Mosquito Vectors of Malaria?
2019 Prof. Marie Dacke (Lund University, Sweden) – As the crow flies, and the beetle rolls: straight-line orientation from behaviour to neurons
2018 Dr Amoret Whitaker (University of Winchester) – Fabulous fleas
2017 Dr George McGavin (Oxford University Museum/BBC) – Tales from television: an entomologist’s perspective
2016 Max Barclay (NHM) – Collections: the last great frontiers of exploration
2015 Prof. Sue Hartley (University of York) – Sustainable crop protection using natural plant products
2014 Prof. Greg Hurst (University of Liverpool) – The extended genome: the impact of microbial symbionts on insect ecology and evolution
2013 Prof. Mike Siva-Jothy (University of Sheffield) – Beg bugs: an emergent problem and an excellent model
2012 Prof. Ilkka Hanski (University Helsinki) – The Glanville fritillary: ecology meets evolution
2011 Prof. Jane Memmott (University of Bristol) – The conservation and utilisation of entomological interactions
2010 Prof. Chris Thomas (University of York) – Insects and climate change: ecological and evolutionary dynamics at shifting range boundaries
2009 Prof. Bill Hanson (Max Planck Institute) – Fly smell: function and evolution of the Drosophila olfactory system in a natural setting
2008 Prof. Lars Chittka (Queen Mary College) – Can insects learn by example?
2007 Prof. Michael Akam (University of Cambridge) – A tale of heads and hox: innovations in the patterning of insect body plans
2006 Prof. Quentin Wheeler (NHM) – Taxonomic renaissance
2005 Prof. Thomas Miller (California, Riverside) – Transgenic approaches to crop protection
2004 Prof. Wittko Francke (University Hamburg) – Chemical signalling amongst insects: evolutionary aspects and chemical structures
2003 Prof. Alfried Vogler (Imperial/NHM) – Why so many beetles? Insights from evolutionary biology and DNA studies
2002 Richard Vane-Wright (NHM) – Insects, an unnatural history
2001 Prof. Jeremy Thomas (CEH) – Strategies used by hoverflies, butterflies and their parasitoids to infiltrate and exploit ant societies
2000 G.A. Vale (Zimbabwe) – Tsetse flies: how behavioural studies can refine control methods
1999 Dr R.J. Wooton (University of Exeter) – Umbrellas, pop-up books and hindwing folding mechanisms
1998 Dr E. Eastwood (Hertfordshire) – So you want to walk on water?
1997 Dr P.R. Ellis (HRI) – Sources of host-plant resistance to insects
1996 Prof. D.S. Saunders (University of Edinburgh) – Circadian rhythms and photoperiodism in the blow fly Calliphora vicina
1995 Dr N.E. Stork (NHM) – Inventorying the World’s insect fauna
