Person

Raven, Robert J.

Occupation
Arachnologist and Museum curator

Summary

Robert Raven is one of Australia's foremost arachnologists. Having started by researching the behaviour and ecology of spiders in the Brisbane region, he moved on to the taxonomy of spiders. He has described over 450 new species in more than 40 genera from Australia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, and Central and South America. Having joined the staff of the Queensland Museum in 1974 he became Head of Terrestrial Biodiversity and Principal Curator. Raven has been Spider Bite Consultant for the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane for many years. He serves as Chairman of the World Spider Catalog Committee for the International Society of Arachnology and was founder of the Australasian Arachnological Society. In 2018 he was awarded the Queensland Museum Medal.

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Details

Chronology

1974 - 1982
Career position - Arachnologist, Queensland Museum
1981
Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Queensland
1983 - 1984
Award - CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship at American Museum of Natural History, New York, U.S.A. and CSIRO, Canberra
1985 - 2021
Career position - Curator, Queensland Museum
1991
Career position - President, Entomological Society of Queensland
2000
Career position - President, International Society for Arachnology
2018
Award - Queensland Museum Medal

Related Awards

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Journal Articles

  • Raven, R. J., 'A new species of funnel-web spider (Hadronyche, Hexathelidae, Mygalomorphae) from north Queensland', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 46 (1) (2000), 225-30. Details
  • Raven, Robert, 'Obituary: Graham Wishart (1937 - 2015)', Australasian arachnology, 86 (2015), 12-3. Details
  • Raven, Robert J., 'Mygalmorph spiders of the Barychelidae in Australia and the western Pacific', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 35 (2) (1994), 291-706. Details

Resources

Helen Cohn

Created: 12 March 2019, Last modified: 15 April 2025

EOAS ID: biogs/P006315b.htm

This Edition: 2026 February - 1926 Centenaries
Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - Late summer: late January to late March - season of eels
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-kooyang-season-of-eels

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