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
2026 Professor Stanislav Gorb – Professor and Director at the Zoological Institute of the Kiel University, Germany
Fly on the Ceiling: How Insect Adhesion Research can Inspire Technology.
2025 Professor Iain Couzin – University of Konstanz, Germany, Princeton University, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
From Democratic Consensus to Cannibalistic Hordes: The Remarkable World of Insect Swarms.
2024 Professor Rebecca Kilner – University of Cambridge
Simpson’s question: How does behaviour influence evolution?
2023 Dr Edgar Turner – University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge)
Managing tropical ecosystems for insect biodiversity.
2022 Professor Camille Parmesan – CNRS Station for Experimental and Theoretical Ecology (SETE, in Moulis, France)
Hot off the Press from IPCC: Insects in a Warming World
2021 Dr Erica McAlister – Natural History Museum London
A Fascination of Flies (lecture given via zoom) – Video Exclusive
2020 Professor Charles Godfray – University of Oxford
Driving Ambition: Can and Should We Use Gene Drive to Knock Out the Major Mosquito Vectors of Malaria?
2019 Professor 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 – Natural History Museum
Collections: the last great frontiers of exploration
2015 Professor Sue Hartley – University of York
Sustainable crop protection using natural plant products
2014 Professor Greg Hurst – University of Liverpool
The extended genome: the impact of microbial symbionts on insect ecology and evolution
2013 Professor Mike Siva-Jothy – University of Sheffield
Beg bugs: an emergent problem and an excellent model
2012 Professor Ilkka Hanski – University HelsinkiThe Glanville fritillary: ecology meets evolution
2011 Professor Jane Memmott – University of Bristol
The conservation and utilisation of entomological interactions
2010 Professor Chris Thomas – University of York
Insects and climate change: ecological and evolutionary dynamics at shifting range boundaries
2009 Professor Bill Hanson – Max Planck Institute
Fly smell: function and evolution of the Drosophila olfactory system in a natural setting
2008 Professor Lars Chittka – Queen Mary College
Can insects learn by example?
2007 Professor Michael Akam – University of Cambridge
A tale of heads and hox: innovations in the patterning of insect body plans
2006 Professor Quentin Wheeler – Natural History Museum
Taxonomic renaissance
2005 Professor Thomas Miller – California, Riverside
Transgenic approaches to crop protection
2004 Professor Wittko Francke – University Hamburg
Chemical signalling amongst insects: evolutionary aspects and chemical structures
2003 Professor Alfried Vogler – Imperial College London / Natural History Museum
Why so many beetles? Insights from evolutionary biology and DNA studies
2002 Richard Vane-Wright – Natural History Museum
Insects, an unnatural history
2001 Professor Jeremy Thomas – Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Strategies used by hoverflies, butterflies and their parasitoids to infiltrate and exploit ant societies
2000 Glyn A. Vale – Stellenbosch University, Zimbabwe
Tsetse flies: how behavioural studies can refine control methods
1999 Dr Robin 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 Professor David S. Saunders – University of Edinburgh
Circadian rhythms and photoperiodism in the blow fly Calliphora vicina
1995 Dr Nigel E. Stork – Griffith University / Natural History Museum
Inventorying the World’s insect fauna
