Welcome to the Zoology Department Home Page. We intend it to be a hub from which external and internal visitors can link to information about our objectives, our people, our processes, our activities and our results. If you find that any aspect of its design, linkages or information do not work well for you, don’t suffer in silence - please let us know. Welcome to the wonderful world of animals.

David Macmillan, Professor and Head of Department.

Our history

Zoology began as Natural Science under founding Professor Frederick McCoy. In 1887, Walter Baldwin Spencer was appointed Professor of Biology. Today the building bearing his name (pictured left in 1936), remains, although the lake has been replaced with union lawns. The Chair of Biology was renamed Zoology following the appointment of Wilfred E. Agar in 1920. Zoology moved to its present location in 1989.

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The Department today

The department has a senior research staff of thirty, supervising over eighty graduate and honours students. It maintains strong links with the Museum Victoria, Melbourne Zoo, the Department of Sustainability and Environment, CSIRO, and a range of other institutions.

The Zoology Department has a vigorous research programme with interests ranging from the structure and function of single cells through to the ecology, reproduction, development and evolution of animals, with special expertise in the following four areas:

Animal Behaviour and Evolution – how evolutionary forces have shaped social behaviour, mating and communication systems; in animals as diverse as brightly coloured birds and cannibalistic spiders.

Marine Ecology and Physiology – the interactions of a myriad of ocean-dwelling organisms such bryozoans, fish, abalone and crustaceans with their environment, and the effects of disturbance, pollution and fisheries on their abundance.

Conservation and Australian Wildlife Biology – the ecology, behaviour and habitat requirements and population management of Australia’s unique endemic fauna.

Reproduction and Development – the cellular and hormonal processes that control seasonal breeding, development and sexual differentiation in mammals, particularly marsupials.

The Department has a range of sophisticated laboratories and equipment housed in a modern building, and is an active participant in a consortium of Victorian institutions that operate the well-equipped Victorian Marine Science Consortium at Queenscliff.