The 12th Polish Malacological Seminar took place on April 25-27 1996 at the Conference
Centre of the University of £ódz. It was organized by Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Piechocki, with the
help of his colleagues from the Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology. We
thank them all!
Fifty three malacologists, most of them professional, but also some amateurs,
attended. The Conference Centre is situated outside the city of £ódz, in a forest, and offers
good accomodation and an excellent cooking at modest prices (and exciting trips through the
forest to a liquor shop). Each participant received baeutifully packed Seminar materials,
including an abstract volume, a notebook, a pen, a city map and what not! Each person got a
badge, adorned with a snail (land malacologists) or a bivalve (aquatic people). The Council of
the Association of the Polish Malacologists (which is a young society, about one year old) met
at the Conference Centre on April 24th and discussed mostly organization, financial and
editorial matters.
The scientific part of the Symposium included five sessions of oral presentations and a poster session. Altogether, there were 28 lectures and brief
communications, plus 11 posters, and almost all of them evoked rather tempestuous
discussions. Since each of us approaches his or her malacology from a slightly different side,
the topics ranged from fossil faunas and parasites of molluscs, through pure systematics, to
aquatic ecology and extant faunas of remote tropical regions or hydrotermal vents. Graphs
and tables made it quite clear who had a better computer and a better printer, that is to say,
who got hold of a better grant.
Each day the science was followed by a social event. On the first evening sausages were grilled outdoors till quite late in the night (no rain, thank God!),
accompanied by beer galore. On the second evening there was a real banquet with lots of
food and drink, and speeches. During the banquet Professor Stefan W. Alexandrowicz - the
organizer of the first seven Seminars, univocally regarded as the motive power of the Polish
malacological community - was awarded the title of the Honorary Member of the Association of
the Polish Malacologists. This is our first honorary member! Congratulations! By the way, at
present the Association includes 49 members, that is about 90% of all malacologists active in
our country. The General Assembly of the Association took place on April 27th. Besides
organization and editorial matters, we discussed the list of mollusc species to be protected,
and produced an application to the nature conservation authorities. Merits of three more
honorary members were also discussed, but we will not tell you now. In all probability the next,
thirteen Seminar, will be held in Szczecin, and we are already waiting for it.
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