Prof Julian Bayliss visited Oswestry school to give a talk entitled “Dangers and discoveries in northern Mozambique - stories and results from 15 years of scientific exploration.”

Prof Bayliss is well known for his use of Google Earth to discover the largest rainforest in southern Africa and described his various adventures through the region over the past 15-20 years and his future plans for new ones. He showed parents, pupils and staff who attended some of the video footage that he has captured during his exploration and that has been used by the BBC for David Attenbourough’s “Africa” and also for “Earth from space”. The visits that Professor Bayliss and his team have undertaken have resulted in many new species becoming known to science, individually he has found a total of 36 new species!

The dangers described by him ranged from snakes (one he stood on also turned out to be a new species) to ticks that cause toxic shock and “gin” (from engine) traps which the local hunters use to capture animals for food.

Professor Bayliss was a fascinating, knowledgeable and interesting speaker and has promised to make a return visit when he returns from his next year of work in Ethiopia.