#Hymathon 2023: 24 hour marathon of Hymenoptera!

We are delighted to announce that the third edition of Hymathon, the Society 24 hour online symposium dedicated toHymenoptera, will take place on 30 November – 1 December 2023.

Hymathon takes place over 24 hours, so wherever you are you can opt to join sessions in the middle of your day or the middle of your night – or indeed both!  This year we will have four sessions:

Session 130/11/2023 17:00 UTCHosted by Miles Zhang
Session 230/11/2023 23:00 UTCHosted by Jessica Awad
Session 301/12/2023 05:00 UTCHosted by Erinn Fagan-Jeffries
Session 401/12/2023 11:00 UTCHosted by Cristina Vasilița

(all dates and times given in UTC; conversion from UTC to local time zones can be done e.g. here: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/)

Scientific talks

All ISH members are invited to present during #Hymathon2023, and we particularly encourage students, early career members and researchers from a diverse range of countries to present. We welcome presentations on all aspects of Hymenoptera: behaviour, biology, systematics, biological control, evolution and more!

We invite both regular talks (15 minutes including questions) and short talks (5 minutes): the latter could cover any topic of interest to hymenopterists including field trip stories, amazing specimens, new methods for field, lab or collection work etc.

Note that if you gave a presentation during the Society 10th International Congress in Romania you are welcome to present again during #Hymathon2023 – this would be an opportunity for members who could not attend the Congress to hear about your research.

Hymenoptera Showdown – run by  José Fernández-Triana

Brand new for #Hymathon2023! The Showdown is an opportunity to tell all ISH members why your group is the best (or at least the best loved…) – in three minutes and three slides.

Do you think that your study group is the best in the entire Hymenoptera order? Is there one taxon so amazing you want to tell everyone about it? Then it is your time to shine and embrace some friendly showdown!

Here are the rules:

Participants will have 3 minutes to demonstrate why their group is the best in the entire Hymenoptera, backing up that assertion with a mix of fun, cool and scientific facts; presentations will be 3 slides maximum. Anything can be used: beautiful images of specimens, amazing biological traits, astonishing species diversity, a unique distribution, body size, fossil record, cool names, importance, society recognition… the sky is the limit to brag about your group!

Taxa can be chosen at any level (from suborder to species); depending on the number of participants some categories may be established, for example, entries at family level or higher versus entries at genus level or lower, to guarantee fair comparisons and competition.

The winners will be selected by popular vote and will have the prize to boast about their group to the entire Hymenoptera society!

For more information please contact José Fernández-Triana

Art competition – run by Taisuke Kawano and Cristina Vasilița

Once again there will be an art competition in connection with Hymathon: this time to include paintings/drawings as well as photographs. More detail on categories and the submission process will follow soon!

There will also be keynote presentations and socials, and the ISH 2023 business meeting will be taking place during one of the sessions.

You will need to be logged in to the website to register. The deadline to register a presentation is 1 November 2023.

We are also looking for people to help host and moderate, and for judges for the students competition: to get involved please get in touch with the Society’s Secretary.

Please advertise this event widely, in particular among hymenopterists who may not be ISH members yet. Note that ISH membership is required to attend and present at #Hymathon2023.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

#Hymathon2023 Organising Committee