The mammals of Malta will be coming under the spotlight during a Heritage Malta webinar which will be livestreamed on Facebook on Tuesday, the 9th of March at 6.30pm.

Mammals in Malta – From the Ice Age to the Present, will consist of a 20-minute presentation by John J. Borg, Senior Curator for Natural History within Heritage Malta, followed by a shorter question and answer session. The presentation will be delivered in Maltese, but there will be English subtitles.

Participants of the webinar will be taken on a virtual tour in and around Ghar Dalam, Wied Dalam and the National Museum of Natural History to discover our mammalian fauna.

The topics covered in the presentation include the arrival in Malta of Ice Age mammals such as elephants and hippopotami; the extinction of a number of species due to rising water levels, isolation, food shortage and the arrival of the first humans, among other factors; and the survival of other species which are still with us today.

John J. Borg will also give a brief overview of the work currently underway in the compilation of the first National Atlas of Maltese Mammals, describing the different techniques used in finding and recording mammals, explaining the digitisation process involved and how to submit one’s findings on the National Museum of Natural History’s Facebook page.

Photo by Heritage Malta Algerian hedgehog

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