News

ARU’s world-leading loris expert to receive award

Professor Anna Nekaris is to be honoured by the Primate Society of Great Britain

Dr Anna Nekaris, Professor in Ecology, Conservation and Environment at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), is to receive a prestigious honour later this year from the Primate Society of Great Britain. 

Professor Nekaris, one of the world’s leading experts in lorises, will be awarded the Osman Hill Memorial Lecture Medal by the Primate Society of Great Britain at their winter meeting in Bristol on 12-13 December.

The medal is awarded annually to a distinguished primatologist who has shown excellence in research and has made a substantial, original, and lasting contribution to the discipline.

Professor Nekaris started her work on nocturnal primates in 1992 and in 2011 she established the Little Fireface Project – a conservation project based in Java, Indonesia, that supports loris conservation worldwide.

She is Vice Chair of the recently formed IUCN Special Section for African and Asian Prosimians, Co-editor-in-chief of Folia Primatologica, and Section Editor of Nature’s Discover Conservation. Earlier this year, Professor Nekaris was made Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to conservation.

Professor Nekaris has published more than 300 scientific papers and 10 edited volumes, and her studies cover all species of slow, pygmy and slender lorises, including five she named or elevated from subspecies, and one genus that she named. 

Her research includes behavioural ecology in zoos, rescue centres and in the wild, including a novel study on slow loris venom, museum studies, genetics, acoustics, taxonomy, conservation education, and community conservation, especially with agroforestry farmers. 

Much of her conservation work has focused on lorises in the pet trade. Through her advocacy, lorises became protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Professor Nekaris has worked with the Japanese government to change laws regarding microchipping of CITES I protected species. She hopes her research will convince people that lorises do not make good pets. 

Professor Nekaris said:

“All species of loris are threatened with extinction and some are amongst the rarest primates on the planet. They are wild animals and my mission is to ensure that as many as possible remain in their natural habitats so we can learn more about these most unique primates.”

On news of her award from the Primate Society of Great Britain, she added:

“Being recognised by my fellow primatologists is a tremendous honour, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be following in the footsteps of some of the wonderful scientists who have previously been awarded the Osman Hill Memorial Lecture Medal. 

“This award is also extra special to me because it is named after a scientist, William Charles Osman Hill, who made some of the first, significant contributions to our knowledge of lorises.”