The 13th African Small Mammal Symposium (ASMS)

September 16-21, 2019

Mekelle University, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia

Dear participants of the 13th ASMS,

we would like to thank you all for your active participation at the 13th African Small Mammal Symposium. We really enjoyed to meet you in Mekelle and we hope that you also spent a pleasant and productive week there.

See you in 2023 in Namibia!

Josef Bryja and Yonas Meheretu

(on behalf of all organizers)


To remember the conference, you can look into the Abstract book or follow the website of the Journal of Vertebrate Biology, where a special issue on African Small Mammals will be published very soon as no. 2 of the volume 69 (available also through BioOne).

The Editorial preface to the special issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Biology with more details about past conferences can be found here.


The African Small Mammal Symposia are organized every fourth year and since 2003 they are regularly held in tropical Africa.

The aim of these meetings is to promote the communication among researchers and students, which are interested in various aspects of biology of African small mammals (mainly rodents, insectivores, bats, afrotherians, and small carnivores and primates), which are still significantly understudied compared to their larger relatives.

Previous successful conferences were organized in:

  • 13th African Small Mammal Symposium, Mekelle, Ethiopia, 16-21 September 2019 (Abstract book)
  • 12th African Small Mammal Symposium, Mantasoa, Madagascar, 12-17 April 2015 (Abstract book)
  • 11th African Small Mammal Symposium, Kwaluseni, Swaziland, 3-8 July 2011 (Abstract book)
  • 10th International African Small Mammal Symposium, Abomey-Calavi, Benin, 20-25 August 2007 (Abstract book)
  • 9th International African Small Mammal Symposium, Morogoro, Tanzania, 14-18 July 2003 (Proceedings)
  • 8th International Symposium on African Small Mammals, Paris, France, 5-9 July 1999 (Proceedings and Abstracts)
  • 7th International African Small Mammal Symposium, Itala, South Africa, 25-30 September 1995
  • 6th International Colloquium on the Ecology and Taxonomy of Small African Mammals, Mitzpe-Ramon, Israel, 11-16 August 1991
  • 5th International Colloquium on the Ecology and Taxonomy of African Small Mammals, Rogate, England, August 1987
  • 4th International Colloquium on the Ecology and Taxonomy of African Small Mammals, Windhoek, Namibia, August 13-20, 1984
  • 3rd International Colloquium on the Ecology and Taxonomy of African Small Mammals. Antwerpen, Belgium, July 20-24, 1981
  • 2nd ????
  • Colloquium on Ecology and Taxonomy of African Small Mammals, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Sept. 19-22, 1977