Professor Shane Ahyong

Professor Shane Ahyong has been appointed the Acting Chief Scientist of the AM following a distinguished local and international career. He is also AMRI’s Principal Research Scientist.

Professor Shane Ahyong has spent a lifetime exploring all things marine and freshwater, being driven by a fascination for aquatic life. He has some 30 years’ experience in the systematics of aquatic invertebrates, especially crustaceans.

Professor Ahyong is a world authority on the phylogeny and systematics of stomatopod and decapod crustaceans, such as mantis shrimps, crabs and lobsters, making up some 15,000 species worldwide. His research examines all aspects of the crustacean tree-of-life, fossil to living, in order to understand how they have evolved and how they live today.

In 2010, Shane took on his current role at the Australian Museum where he maintains strong local and international collaborations. He has published widely, spanning research papers, book chapters and books, mostly on taxonomy and phylogenetics of marine and freshwater invertebrates, and has described more than 300 new species.

Shane serves on the Fish Names Committee for the Australian Fish Names Standard (FRDC) and Aquatic Plant Names Committee for the Australian Aquatic Plant Names Standard (FRDC). He also serves on two international bodies dealing with global species name standards: as a Commissioner on the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and as Chair of the Steering Committee of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).

He is currently included in the Stanford University list of the top 2% most influential scientists worldwide. Two recent discoveries include an unusual new species of mantis shrimp recognised by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) as one of the Top 10 new species described in 2024, and new species of Giant Deep-Sea isopod (Bathynomus) from 2500m deep in the Sulu Sea, the deepest known record for the genus.

He has conducted field work throughout Australasia, the region with the highest marine biodiversity in the world, and the greatest number of new species to be discovered. He is currently a Senior Principal Research Scientist and Head of Marine Invertebrates at the Australian Museum, Sydney; Professor (Adjunct), School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales; Research Associate, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. He completed his Ph.D. in 2000 at the University of New South Wales, followed by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Australian Museum. In 2006, Shane joined the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand, where he managed the marine biosecurity collections and headed the Marine Invasives Taxonomic Service and Marine Biodiversity and Biosecurity Group, with a research focus on marine biosecurity and deep-water fishery species.

Ph.D. (UNSW), B.Sc. (Hons) (UNSW)

• Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN)
• Steering Committee, World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS)
• NSW Fisheries Threatened Species Scientific Committee
• Professor (Adjunct), School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales
• Research Associate, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
• Past President, The Crustacean Society