University of Tasmania, Australia

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building

• The zoology animal compound is a fenced area near the School, approximately 50 m by 100 m. It is divided into four sub-enclosures, each containing a small number of captive free-roaming animals. It contains several blocks of cages, designed for marsupials, and a food preparation area
  
  
• Other facilities include: frog ponds; outdoor enclosures for large and small lizards; large block of "aviaries" used for birds, bats or lizards
  
  
• The animal rooms are in the Life Sciences Building. There is a Reverse Daylight facility with cages suitable for native mammals such as possums or sugar gliders
  
  
• Rodents or other small animals for teaching are accommodated in a separate room
  
  
• The adjacent upper enclosure, of 1 ha on Mt Nelson, is for free-ranging mammals
  
  
• The lizard rooms contain caging and heating for small skinks
  
  

The School maintains marine and freshwater aquarium facilties for teaching research activities. Marine researchers in Zoology may also have access to a multimillion dollar aquarium facility at the Marine Research Laboratories, Taroona.

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building

Fresh water ecology is an important area of activity in the School. We have trailer boats and inflatable boats for this work. Members of the School also have access to boats at the Marine Research Laboratory of the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute (TAFI).

The zoology fleet comprises the following:

• 4.3m aluminium runabout with a single 60hp Yamaha 2-stroke outboard engine
• Several 2.3 m inflatable dinghies.

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building, 2/14 & 15

In partnership with the two other Life Science schools, the School operates a large computer laboratory equipped with 30 DELL with LCD flat screen computers plus annex Computer Lab with 10 Digital Desktop computers together with 2 laser printers. The computers are used widely for teaching; at other times there are freely available for Life Science students.

The computers are networked for the intra- and internet and loaded with a wide range or general and specialised software.

Laser printing is available at 10 cents a page through a CAPs account; accounts can be established at the IT Help Desk in the Morris Miller Library.

In addition to this centralised facilty there are a large number of computers in staff and postgraduate offices and in research and teaching laboratories.

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building, 1/11

The Lizard Rooms are a custom-built facility able to house small lizards in very large numbers. Controlled temperature and lighting in the rooms, and individual basking lamps for each cage, allow us to manipulate environmental conditions as appropriate. We also have some outdoor lizard enclosures.

Over the research season, in spring/summer, the Lizard Rooms are in great demand by members of the Herpetology Research Group. We usually have two or more Honours students conducting projects, and some third year students (KZA352 Environmental Adaptations) also undertake projects on lizard locomotion or metabolism.

Our outdoor enclosures house adult blue-tongued lizards and Tasmanian dragon lizards, with other species being held there for particular experiments. We also maintain a breeding colony of adult blue-tongued lizards, housed in indoor/outdoor cages with access to natural sunlight.

Much of the equipment used for teaching and research activities is designed and built in the School's mechanical worksop. Richard Holmes, the workshop technical officer, is skilled at solving the special problems of creating just the right piece of equipment for our work with a range of animals.

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building, 449/450

The Molecular Genetics Laboratory is a joint facility for the Schools of Agricultural Science, Plant Science and Zoology. It provides a full range of equipment for moulcular studies of population structure, phylogeny and gene fucnction. It is managed by Adam Smolenski.

In addition to all the usual molecular equipment the laboratory has a Gel-Scan 2000 for DNA fingerprinting and access to a capillary DNA sequencer, Real-Time PCR machines, microarray reader & dHPLC mutation analyser. The laboratory is one of the most productive research facilities in the University.

Sandy Bay Campus, Life Sciences Building, 1/12

Many marsupials are noctural and only active during hours of darkness. So that they can be studied without destroying the sleep patterns of the researchers, the School has a reverse daylight facility where the usual day/night cycle can be shifted by 12 hours.

Over recent years this facilty has been used extensively for the sudy of sugar gliders and bettongs.

Field-based activities are a major part of our teaching and research programs. To support these activities the School has a vehicle fleet comprising a Toyota Land Crusier 100 Series RV and two Toyota Hilux 4WD twin cab utilities.

These vehicles can be driven by staff, postgraduate and Honours students after appropriate training in off-road driving skills. The vehicle fleet is managed by Adam Stephens.