AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE SUMMER 2017/18
Mammoths: Ice Age giants down under
CONTENTS 4
6
8
News
Australia’s greatest treasures in the frame
Sculptor of the dead
9
10
13
Taking back control of culture
Journey to Kwaio
Bloody adventures from the days of the dinosaurs
14
17
18
Holding back the tide
Prized connections
Healing force in world of wounds
20
26
28
Return of the mammoths
Hidden gems of the sea
Discoveries find new home
31
34
Calling all frogs
Rare bird excites lifelong passion
EXPLORE ISSN 1833-752X Spring 2017/18
Explore, the news and events magazine of the Australian Museum and Australian Museum Members, is published biannually. Copyright Unless otherwise credited, all text and images appearing in Explore magazine are copyright © Australian Museum, 2017. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, you may not reproduce or copy any part of this publication without the written permission of the Australian Museum. Please contact the Editor for further information. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Museum. Editor Melinda Ham Design Trudi Fletcher Production Jenny Hooker Prepress Spitting Image Sydney Printing Peachy Print We welcome your feedback, comments and enquiries. Email the Editor at Melinda@narratemedia.com.au Australian Museum 1 William Street Sydney NSW 2010 Open daily 9.30am – 5pm (closed 25 Dec) T 02 9320 6000 (switch) T 02 9320 6225 (Members) Australian Museum Trust President Catherine Livingstone AO Director & CEO Kim McKay AO Environmental responsibility Explore is printed on Revive, a 100% recycled paper. australianmuseum.net.au
FROM THE DIRECTOR
The arrival of the world’s best-preserved woolly mammoth at the Australian Museum is a rare treat. Lyuba (which means “love” in Russian) is a 42,000-year-old baby mammoth, who has travelled overseas only five times since she was discovered in Siberia in 2007. We’re honoured that she’s taken her first trip to the Southern Hemisphere to be the star attraction of our new interactive exhibition Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age, which runs until May. Lyuba has travelled down under during an exciting time for the AM. Our 190th year celebrations culminated in October with the opening of the Westpac Long Gallery, after a two-year restoration. Australia’s first gallery is now home to some of Australia’s greatest treasures. The new permanent exhibition 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum showcases significant objects and specimens from the AM’s 18 million-plus collection. The exhibition also celebrates the people who have shaped Australian history, science, nature or culture. Selecting the 100 people was a challenging task, as selection committee member Dr Patricia O’Brien explains in this issue. The $9 million restoration and exhibition were only possible with the support of Westpac, the NSW Government and the Australian Museum Foundation, and a fantastic cohort of donors. With their help, we have restored the three-level Long Gallery to its rightful place as Australia’s finest museum gallery.
Left to right: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian; “living treasures” director Dr George Miller AO, broadcaster Ita Buttrose AO OBE and architect Glenn Murcutt AO; NSW Minister for the Arts Don Harwin; AM Director & CEO Kim McKay AO and Gabi Hollows AO, widow of “treasure” Professor Fred Hollows AC, at the official opening of the Westpac Long Gallery
The AM also cemented its place as a scientific pioneer with the launch of Australia’s first national frog count. FrogID will put our threatened frog species on the map, to help protect them from habitat loss, disease and climate change. Coordinated nationally by the AM’s Centre for Citizen Science, we are now calling on citizen scientists across the country to take part – and all you need is a smartphone. Download the AM’s free FrogID app, developed in partnership with IBM, and head out to your local park, creek or waterway to record the sounds of frog calls. Uploading those recordings will help scientists analyse the data to save some of our most threatened species and the waterways they call home. Who knows, you might even discover a new frog species! I’d also like to congratulate Dr Anne Hoggett and Dr Lyle Vail, directors of the AM’s Lizard Island Research Station, for receiving the AM Research Institute Medal at this year’s Eureka Prizes. Their dedication to scientific research and education has made them true custodians of this important AM research facility on the Great Barrier Reef. It’s been a truly remarkable 190th year at the AM and I’d like to thank our visitors and members, dedicated staff and scientists, Trustees, partners and donors for their support. We look forward to working together in the exciting years to come! Kim McKay AO Director and CEO EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 3
NEWS
Year 10 girls studying an array of fossils at the AM, organised by UNSW. Photograph Alex Bannigan © UNSW
Bright future for female stars
DNA weapons in war on illegal trade
The Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) recently hosted 50 high school students as part of the University of NSW’s STEM Career Week.
Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) scientists recently took part in a pilot project to show the power of bio-banking and genetics as tools in the war against the illegal wildlife trade.
The aim of the program is to provide young, bright women with an insight into careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As well as the AM, they visited Google, the Commonwealth Bank and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. At the AM, Dr Rebecca Johnson, AMRI Director, spoke about the opportunities she had had, including being the first woman in her role at the museum and working under Kim McKay, the museum’s first woman Director and CEO. Dr Jodi Rowley, the AM’s Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles, discussed her fieldwork in Vietnam and Outback Australia, and the significant impact she and her team are having on the conservation of amphibians. Dr Isabel Hyman, an AM Malacology researcher, showed the students some of her latest work on land snails and explained how she uses genomics to determine new species. Dr Jacqueline Nguyen, an AM palaeontology researcher, brought along some fossils of giant prehistoric birds. She is one of only two female researchers in her field in Australia. Finally, Dr Robin Torrence, an AM archaeologist, used X-ray technology to show how archaeologists do material and wear testing on stone tools, to find out about how people lived thousands of years ago. 4|
In a study published in Conservation Genetics Resources, scientists from the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI), the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), the University of Sydney and the Zoo and Aquarium Association developed a model of how endangered species could be managed to curb the illegal trade. Using the endangered Australian Broad Headed Snake (BHS) Hoplocephalus bungaroides, as a case study, the OEH created a pilot project where all licensed animals were microchipped and had a DNA sample lodged with AMRI to form a bio-bank of this species. AMRI scientists then developed a range of DNA tests to provide DNA fingerprints for all individuals in the biobank. The AMRI team used these DNA fingerprinting tools to investigate three groups of BHS: those privately held under licence in NSW; all BHS currently held in Australian zoos; and wild BHS. While the captive zoo population formed its own genetic cluster, AMRI’s results showed significant overlap between the private and wild populations, suggesting that wild-caught snakes have been periodically introduced illegally into the privately-held captive population.
Dingoes go feral in scientific debate
Owl flies high with powerful friends
Ever since it was first described by European scientists in 1792, the Dingo has been the subject of debate over its scientific name and origin.
When Dr Jodi Rowley, the Australian Museum’s Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles, recently found a critically injured Powerful Owl crumpled on the AM’s William Street steps, the prognosis was not good. The owl had concussion and an injured beak after she’d possibly been hit by a car or truck. It was one of a pair known to live in the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and the AM grounds.
Since the late 18th Century, Dingoes have been referred to by various names, including Canis dingo, Canis antarticus, Canis lupus dingo, Canis familiaris and Canis familiaris dingo. Of these, C. l. Dingo and C. f. dingo have been most frequently used but scientists recently proposed that the Dingo should be recognised as a full species: Canis dingo. In a recent article published in Zootaxa, Dr Mark Eldridge, Principal Research Scientist, Terrestrial Vertebrates at the Australian Museum and Dr Stephen Jackson from the NSW Department of Primary Industries shed some light on the Dingo’s past. They looked at morphological, genetic, ecological and biological data for the Dingo, Domestic Dogs and Wolves and concluded that the Dingo is not a separate species after all. Instead, they argued that the Dingo is a feral population of an ancient breed of the Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris), first introduced to Australia by humans about 4000 years ago. When Europeans first came to Australia, they encountered Dingoes as companion animals living with Indigenous people and as wild animals.
Thanks to a team effort from AM staff and friends at the Royal Botanic Garden and Taronga Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital, the Powerful Owl received immediate veterinary attention. After a week of recuperation, staff released it back into the Royal Botanic Garden to join its mate. Powerful Owls mate for life – sometimes for up to 30 years – so the story ended happily ever after. The Powerful Owl is the largest owl in Australasia. It is endemic to eastern and southeastern Australia and lives in open forests, woodlands and sheltered gullies. It eats mainly tree-dwelling mammals, particularly the Common Ringtail Possum, (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) and the Great Glider.
Above: Canis dingo, John Gould, The Mammals of Australia, vol 3, 1863 Left: The injured Powerful Owl during recovery and once released
EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 5
The Spirited Dawn Fraser AO MBE
The Innovator Emily Kame Kngwarreye
The Revolutionary Germaine Greer
Australia’s greatest treasures in the frame The reopened Westpac Long Gallery’s 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum celebrates the people who helped shape the nation. Some of the people selected for the exhibition will seem familiar, while others may be known for their achievements or benefits but their names are not well known. All of these people have, in many extraordinary ways, shaped Australia. There are athletes, politicians, writers and performers, doctors and explorers, entrepreneurs, aviators, agriculturalists, activists and architects. Also, there are researchers who transformed the lives of millions, novelists, poets, painters, photographers, an outlaw and even a saint. These people’s lives span four centuries. A number came from circumstances that would typically have meant they lived in obscurity. Instead, through drive, persistence or favourable circumstances, they achieved something remarkable that enriched Australia’s story. Others used their talents to push the boundaries of knowledge and achievement. Many are intrinsic to our national life, while others are quieter achievers or we have only recently 6|
become aware of their contribution. Selecting 100 entries was a surprisingly challenging task. A diverse committee of 14 members nominated people who had made a mark in the areas of history, science, nature and culture. Much discussion ensued and we whittled the nominations down to the final 100. The nominations had to reflect an inclusive picture of Australian society and an expansive view of what Australia was and is. The final 100 includes people not born on Australian soil and Australian-born people whose influence and achievements extend beyond our shores. These 100 entries generate a picture of Australia as a global crossroads of people and ideas, reflecting Australian conditions and circumstances in many ways. In a project such as this, it is very easy to fall prey to a repetition of historical clichés. But we hope that even with the most familiar names there will still be something surprising and thought-provoking.
The Resilient Charles Perkins AO
The Curious Jørn Utzon AC HON. FAIA
BY DR PATRICIA O’BRIEN AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HISTORIAN & MEMBER OF THE SELECTION COMMITTEE
The Underdog Ned Kelly
“These 100 entries generate a picture of Australia as a global crossroads of people and ideas …”
Of course, not everyone deserving of recognition appears here. Those included may generate debate. This is to be encouraged. What Australia was and is has never been fixed, and what has shaped us shifts and changes, too. This keeps the past alive.
member of the Country Women’s Association.
The people presented in the exhibition did what they loved or were gifted with, or faced daunting challenges and somehow overcame them. Some lives coincided with momentous historical events.
Those who have proven ability to survive despite adversity are listed as Resilient and include former prime minister Julia Gillard, Indigenous activist Charles Perkins and Caroline Chisholm, a welfare crusader for women immigrant welfare.
Many of the people were connected to each other in ways that illustrate how serendipitous encounters transmit ideas or provoke reactions that lead to important change. These 100 entries are organised into six groups: Spirited, Innovators, Revolutionaries, Resilient, Curious and Underdogs.
People who have caused a dramatic change in history have been included as Revolutionaries, such as environmentalist Bob Brown, writer Germaine Greer and Eddie Mabo, the Indigenous land rights campaigner.
The Curious are inquisitive individuals who challenged the status quo and include Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon, Ruby Scott Payne, a pioneer in radio astronomy, and author Thomas Keneally.
The Spirited are those who reveal a typical quality or attitude that is considered Australian. They include Kylie Minogue, Don Bradman and Dawn Fraser.
The Underdogs displayed that much-loved Australian quality of succeeding against unlikely odds and include Saint Mary McKillop, aviator Nancy Bird Walton and Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the first published Indigenous woman poet.
Innovators are groundbreaking pioneers whose impact or achievements have influenced future generations, such as surgeon Victor Chang, contemporary Indigenous artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Ruth Fairfax, a founding
Owing to the diversity of people and their achievements, many do not fit neatly in just one category, but these six groups offer another way to think about how these people shaped Australia. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 7
PROFILE
Preparator/Taxidermist Katrina McCormick in the AM lab
Katrina McCormick
Sculptor of the dead Steam wafts out of a large simmering pot as Katrina McCormick gingerly pulls out a spoonful of bones. “Not ready yet,” she says. “You can see the fat hasn’t quite come off.” It will take a couple of days. This is not a winter-warming broth. McCormick – one of two taxidermists at the Australian Museum (AM) – is cleaning the bones of an Asian Golden Cat (Catopuma temminckii), a gift from Taronga Zoo. For some animals and birds, she also uses a colony of flesh-eating beetles. She says they make a “snap, crackle and pop sound” as they chew off every remnant of muscle and cartilage. Another choice is to let the carcasses rot down in compost. Animals come to the AM from zoos, National Parks or are collected on expeditions. McCormick keeps the animals in what looks like a shipping container but is actually a walkin freezer packed with different carcasses, including dolphin heads. They are all waiting in the queue to be prepared either as a collection specimen or display mount. 8|
Frozen specimens are thawed, measurements taken, data recorded and tissue extracted for DNA analysis. For a specimen that is destined to become a mammal study skin, McCormick makes an incision in the chest, and then peels back the skin – similar to pulling off a wetsuit. “I extract the skull and majority of the skeleton. The foot bones remain with the study skin as the claws are attached,” she says. If the animal is destined for study not display, she lays it flat and fills its body with Dacron, cotton and wire. Display animals are instead put into a lifelike pose and given glass eyes. McCormick became a taxidermist after receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts, Canterbury University. She started her career in Christchurch, New Zealand, by working for a commercial taxidermist before coming to Sydney. “I was a makeup artist for dead animals,” she chuckles. She’s now had a 15-year career at the AM, starting as a volunteer and honing her profession by learning on the job.
OPINION
Taking back control of culture Wiradjuri man Nathan Sentance joined the Australian Museum on secondment from the State Library of NSW and found a dynamic shift at work.
The Australian Museum has one of the largest and most significant collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural material in the world and so is a powerful instrument for cultural engagement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal people alike. Unfortunately, as is the case in many galleries, libraries and museums, until now much of the pre-existing Aboriginal cultural and historic narrative was told by non-Aboriginal people with a Euro-centric bias. As a result, this narrative contains information gaps, misconceptions and inaccuracies, which sometimes led to a simplistic view of Aboriginal people and their culture, one which created and continued stereotypes. This dynamic has started to shift as the AM begins to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to take control over their own narrative and culture, so the AM can present this narrative in the way that the community wants. One effective method for the AM to facilitate and amplify Aboriginal perspectives is through public programs, to get museum visitors to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in nuanced ways that challenge stereotypes and misconceptions. Participants leave with a better understanding of Aboriginal knowledge, science and history. These programs also facilitate Aboriginal voices as the catalyst for important discussions. During my time at AM, Chels Marshall, a Gumbaynggirr marine scientist, led an afternoon lecture to discuss how Western marine science could benefit by incorporating Gumbaynggirr knowledge, especially in environmental management, within museum contexts. Aboriginal cultural practitioner, Milan Dhiiyaan, also ran modern Aboriginal meditation workshops at the AM. These engaged participants in different aspects of Aboriginal culture through traditional song and dance, the use of bush medicine and guided meditation and storytelling.
Nathan Sentance is part of the AM’s gamarada Aboriginal cultural experience program
Today, the AM has more Aboriginal staff than ever before. With the right support, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public programs and collections can demonstrate the complexity and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait culture. This can help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people take control of the narrative that surrounds them. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 9
EXPEDITION
Journey to Kwaio Below: binubinu (group dancing) on cultural day Right: Kwaio community’s colourful combs
BY MELINDA HAM
An Australian Museum expedition to a remote part of the Solomon Islands celebrated a cultural exchange with the local community. In August, three Australian scientists visited the Kwaio community in a remote part of the Solomon Islands in the east Kwaio mountains. There is no road, no airstrip and no tourism. You can’t travel there by car or plane. The only access is by foot. To get there, the team flew into Honiara, capital of the Solomons, and then took a small plane to the island of Malaita. From there, they trekked eight hours from the coast into the interior, through gardens, streams, dense jungle and into the Kwaio Mountains. “The community doesn’t see many visitors from outside the Solomons,” says Dr Rebecca Johnson, the AM Research Institute’s Director, who led the delegation. “They were incredibly welcoming and honoured that three Aussie scientists wanted to experience their culture.” Dr Tyrone Lavery, a mammal expert from the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History and Dr David Maclaren, a health specialist from James Cook University, were the other members of the delegation and are part of the AM’s ongoing collaboration with the community This recent delegation is part of the AM’s long-standing association with the Solomons, that also includes Professor Tim Flannery, the AM’s curator of mammals from 1984–1999, who documented endemic mammal species and collected specimens for the museum. For the past two years, the AM and the Kwaio community, in particular, have collaborated on several projects exploring conservation issues and local cultural knowledge of biodiversity and animals. With support from the AM Foundation and the Foundation Segre, the community has also established a cultural centre and school. “The Solomons is very like Australia in that we have unique endemic biodiversity,” Johnson says. “Like us, the Solomons have not only a huge diversity of plant and animal species but also
face environmental change via habitat threats, such as from logging and mining. The Kwaio community is strongly resolved to protect and conserve this biodiversity.” During the visit in August, Johnson met with chiefs, leaders and other senior members of the region to discuss conservation strategies and to see their new Kwainaa`isi Cultural Centre and School. Previously, students had to leave their community to study on the coast. With AM support, the community-based school now has three full-time teachers to teach basic numbers, reading, writing and Kwaio language, five days a week. An additional 12 instructors teach different aspects of Kwaio culture, including music, arts and history. Kwaio community members showed their Australian visitors how they weave baskets, make shell money and brightly coloured decorative items such as combs and use bamboo to make musical instruments, such as an `au (or panpipe). They also gave a musical performance, combining `au, `aa`imae (chanting with bamboo sticks about historical music) and gigilo (stamping with bamboo). The day ended with celebratory binubinu (group dancing) and feasting. “They’ve built this cultural centre because they wanted to create a museum that is not just a place where you can see cultural objects. It’s a living place where everyone can gather and share knowledge, teach and learn these mastercrafts and value cultural practices through music, dance and song,” Johnson says. “The goal is that they will then be passed on to the next generations, who will continue to be proud custodians of their culture.” Another important dimension of the visit was a “knowledge exchange” with local rangers, who have started patrolling the Kwainaa‘isi, Kafurumu and Aifasi conservation areas for illegal activities, such as hunting and forest exploitation. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 11
Lavery, of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, led a three-day skills training workshop, teaching rangers GPS mapping and how to deploy camera traps to locate feral cats, and set nets.
Paying it forward
These skills may also help rangers identify and describe new species in future and to find endangered ones. These include the elusive Giant Rat, which is the size of a Brushtail Possum but hasn’t been seen for more than 15 years, and the Monkey-faced Bat (genus Pteralopex), a type of Flying Fox with bicuspidate canines strong enough to crack green coconuts.
Later this year, a delegation of eight people from the Kwaio community is due to come to Australia to share their conservation outcomes to date and visit the AM’s Pacific Collection, one of the largest and most significant in the world with items collected from all over the region throughout the museum’s history. They also plan to visit Taronga Zoo to see animals from other continents and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney to learn about preparation and storage of herbarium specimens.
Lavery made two unsuccessful expeditions to the Solomons in 2016 to try to find live specimens of these endangered and rarely seen animals. But he did find nuts chewed side-on which is strongly suggestive of the persistence of the Giant Rat. Johnson says the trip was a significant learning curve and it was a privilege to experience firsthand such a unique culture. “It was really special to see what a sustainable lifestyle the people of Kwaio have,” she says. “It really struck me what a very small footprint they have compared with us in the West. They essentially live off their land and purchase the few items they don’t grow or collect themselves. Any plastic that comes into the community finds a new life and is reused again and again for some other purpose – we would do well to pause and think how we might go about adopting such practices back here at home.”
The cultural exchange between the AM and the Solomons is reciprocal. In August this year, the Prime Minister, Hon. Manasseh Sogavare, visited Sydney and had a tour of the AM.
Some of the delegation will meet with AM staff to discuss the progress of the Cultural School and Cultural centre. They also will talk about their conservation work – and the upcoming visit by AM scientists, possibly joined by Flannery next year. “We are matching our expertise at the AM with the priorities of the Kwaio community,” Johnson says. “It is so important to ensure our collaboration is community-driven and meets their needs and expectations. Even five scientists conducting an expedition could have an impact on their finely-balanced system. We want to make sure there is plenty of consultation and planning so our work endures and continues to benefit the community into the future.” Below: Dr Rebecca Johnson with the women who participated in the cultural day
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PROFILE
BY CORDELIA HOUGH CREATIVE PRODUCER, CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS
Playing dinosaurs with a Diprotodon
Bloody adventures from the days of the dinosaurs A dead T.rex lies on its side, 11-metres long, filling up the entire width of the Australian Museum’s Dinosaur Gallery. Its gouged-out grapefruit-sized eyes sit on a plinth next to the beast’s heart. It’s the only anatomically correct, life-size T.rex model ever built, and it’s on display in all its gory glory for the first time. To the delight of wideeyed, seven-year-old children jumping up and down excitedly, there is blood. Lots of blood. It was part of the AM’s Dinosaur Festival, which drew thousands of excited kids for a glimpse of the latest dinosaur models. Over the spring school holidays, families learned about geology and palaeontology through 15 different programs and activities, none of which involved a dry lecture. Using invaluable AM biological, geological and cultural objects, we’re inspiring future generations to understand and care for our natural world. If children examine what the past can teach them about the present, it could equip them to face future challenges. The AM takes the words of Senegalese forestry engineer Baba Dioum to heart: “In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will
understand only what we are taught.” At the Dinosaur Festival, children learned by doing: they cracked open geodes (spherical rocks that contain hollow cavities lined with crystals); created clay fossils, reconstructed what newly discovered Australian dinosaurs may have looked like; and partied like it was 65 million-years-ago at the Dino Silent Disco. They exercised their imaginations while listening to the story of Billie and the Dinosaurs, narrated by comedian Tim Ferguson and accompanied by live music from composer Geoff Willis. Inspiring the scientists of tomorrow, the “Scientist for a Day” program provided young visitors unique access to AM scientists and behind-the-scenes collection areas, allowing them to imagine themselves as geologists and palaeontologists in years to come. This was the latest event of the AM Programming team’s push to inject healthy doses of interactivity, music, performance and digital technology into all school holiday activities. And it seems to be working. Participation of five- to 12-year-olds is already on the rise, right across the museum. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 13
CULTURE
Holding back the tide
A new collaboration between the Australian Museum and Western Sydney’s arts centres highlights the imminent environmental threat to Pacific nations.
“We are facing the seemingly inevitable prospect of losing Tuvalu.” The tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is less than two metres above sea level on average. About halfway between Australia and Hawaii, this collection of nine low-lying islands in the South Pacific is one of the areas most threatened by climate change. Angela Tiatia, a Samoan-Australian performance and multimedia artist, has created a new video installation filmed on Funafuti, the main coral atoll of Tuvalu, during the period of daily flooding of all its 30 islets caused by the full moon and King tide. Scientists predict Tuvalu will be permanently under water in the next 35 to 50 years. “We can see a glimpse of the challenges we may face in our collective future by looking at life in some of our smallest nations,” Tiatia says. “This work is a lament about what we are losing. It is a statement and study of daily life that has become punctuated by the trials of living amongst dramatic changes to an environment. We are facing the seemingly inevitable prospect of losing Tuvalu over the coming decades, as it gradually slips beneath the rising waters.” Tiatia’s film Tuvalu is the centrepiece of the art project Oceania Rising: Climate Change in our Region, a collaboration between the Australian Museum, Blacktown Arts and Campbelltown Art Centre and the Casula Powerhouse. The program of Pacific-themed exhibitions and events across the venues seeks to raise awareness and galvanise action around the impact of climate change in the Pacific, says Dr Jenny Newell, Manager East Pacific Collections at the AM. Rising sea levels and increasing temperatures are already causing widespread loss of land, homes and livelihoods across the region. Globally, climate change is also bringing more intense cyclones, longer droughts and coral bleaching, and many other devastating environmental effects. “Now is the time to do something about it before it’s too late,” Newell says. “Oceania Rising’s meaning is both literal and political.” Pacific communities in Sydney are strongest in the Western Suburbs. The art centres there have strong connections and ongoing outreach programs. “The AM has a lot to learn from the experiences of these art centres,” Newell says. “We also want to engage not just with Pacific communities but the broader community in arts and activism around climate change.” Running throughout 2018, Oceania Rising will visit the arts centres and Casula Powerhouse, before finishing at the AM. Teuga Patolo stands in King tide waters surrounding her neighbour’s house in Funafui, Tuvalu. Photograph © Rodney Dekker
The project features a suite of three of Tiatia’s videos: Tuvalu; Holding On, where she’s filmed lying prostrate on a concrete slab as the rising waves wash over her body; and Salt Stone, in which water slowly engulfs the tarmac of Tuvalu’s airport, the highest point on the island. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 15
The AM and each arts centre will use Tiatia’s videos as the central focus of a program of talks, performances, workshops and art exhibitions, Newell says. Some centres will also work with young Pacific people around cultural objects, developing displays and videos around the theme of climate change, drawing from their existing collections as well as new works. The AM has one of the world’s largest collections of Pacific cultural objects. During the year-long program, Tiatia will also travel to each of the centres to create digital projects with groups of young people. “Culminating in early 2019, an event at the AM will provide a crescendo to this exciting project,” Newell says.
Artistic inspiration and advocacy Tiatia’s performance pieces challenge the perception that climate change is abstract and inhuman. “This abstraction is only compounded for many of us, because we don’t personally feel any direct impacts – our life goes on day-to-day with little change,” she says. “Climate change is not abstract for me. For much of my youth, I grew up in a small village on the island of Savai’i, in Samoa. My family home now floods regularly. We can no longer grow our staple foods on our property as the soil has become saline.”
Other artists taking part in the project are likely to include Latai Taumoepeau, an Indigenous performance artist with Tongan heritage, and Thelma Thomas, an award-winning rapper of Fijian heritage, who is also the AM’s Youth Worker for Cultural Collections and Community Engagement. Oceania Rising is part of the AM’s wider outreach programs with Sydney’s Pacific communities. This year, AM staff worked with 350.org Pacific, an international environmental advocacy organisation, and hosted a talanoa about climate change, a discussion of Islander faith leaders about encouraging action within their communities. In May 2016, Pacific Islanders from 14 nations blockaded Newcastle harbour with hundreds of canoes and kayaks, as part of the global protest action “Break Free from Fossil Fuels”. 350.org Pacific have given the AM Ta Reo o Vanuatu, a canoe emblazoned with slogans, used in the blockade. Whether it’s the presidents of the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Palau addressing the UN, or poets, songwriters, artists and others reaching out through YouTube and Facebook, people across the region are drawing attention to the region in the hope of inspiring action. Oceania Rising is joining them. Pacific climate activists blockade the world’s largest coal port at Newcastle, Australia, 2016. Photograph © 350.org
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AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM EUREKA PRIZES
Prized connections When Indigenous rangers in South East Arnhem Land spotted a near-threatened bright orange and blue grasshopper their shouts filled the air. “We stumbled across the host plant Pityrodia first, and we hoped might see it,” recalls Dr Emilie Ens, a lecturer at Macquarie University and co-winner of this year’s Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science sponsored by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. “Then, there it was – a Leichhardt’s Grasshopper (Petasida ephippigera). Everyone was very excited because it’s so rare and a great indicator of the health of Country, of good fire management.” Her co-winner, Cherry Wulumirr Daniels (a 73-year-old senior Ngandi woman), had not seen the grasshopper since she was a child, more than 60 years earlier. The Ngukurr Wi Stadi Bla Kantri (which means “we study the Country” in Kriol) research team won this year’s Australian Museum Eureka Prize for their work, which combines Indigenous knowledge with Western science and transfers knowledge between generations. “We are trying to reach as many people as possible to give them an opportunity to do hands-on scientific research,” Ens says. “If people learn more about Country and connect more with it, then they can understand some of the threats and want to be involved in its management.”
The grasshopper was found during a biodiversity survey, one of the project’s core initiatives. The surveys have led to a 140-page field guide of the local flora and fauna, which will be published in seven Indigenous languages, as well as English and Kriol. The Ngukurr Wi Stadi Bla Kantri project has evolved over the past nine years, bringing together the Yugul Mangi Rangers, most of the 1,000 residents of the South East Arnhem Land Aboriginal community of Ngukurr and children at Ngukurr School. “We involve the school kids through holiday camps and teach the senior classes about plants and animals,” Ens says. “Kids love technology. So we get them to do video recording and use tablets, computers and cameras.” They also use motion-sensor camera traps, cage traps, pitfall traps, Elliott traps and funnel traps to find small mammals, reptiles and frogs. They might also take tissue samples for DNA analysis. “All the field research is linked to Macquarie University and we are publishing journal articles and studies on what we are doing, as well as making videos for our YouTube channel,” Ens says. “We may even have found some new species.” To learn more about the 2017 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, see australianmuseum.net.au/eureka Above: Yugul mangi Ranger Clarry Rogers (left) and Ngukurr Yangbala (young people) checking pitfall trap line for reptiles during a 2017 survey in SE Arnhem Land. Leichhardt’s Grasshopper. Photographs © Dr Emilie Ens
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SCIENCE
This year, the Lord Howe Island Environmental Survey Group won the Australian Museum Research Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Explore profiles Emeritus Professor Harry Recher, who led the group.
Healing force in a world of wounds From his home on Dangar Island, north of Sydney, Emeritus Professor Harry Recher looks out over the Hawkesbury River and forest-clad cliffs of Brisbane Waters National Park, and reflects on a 50-year career. “When you’re an ecologist you live in a world of wounds,” he says, paraphrasing Aldo Leopold, a founding figure in wildlife ecology in the US. “You see the wounds no-one else does.” Recher has spent most of his life understanding those wounds and recommending ways to heal them. His research has led to insights into the natural world and his teaching touched a generation of environmental scientists. He continues to speak out on society’s failure to stem habitat destruction and species extinction. Recher spent two decades at the Australian Museum as a senior avian ecologist. He’s held professorships at four Australian universities, written more than 350 scientific papers, conference papers, editorials, books and book chapters, and received an Order of Australia. For 15 years, he was editor of Pacific Conservation Biology, Australia’s leading conservation journal. One of his legacies is the World Heritage status of Lord Howe Island, off the coast of NSW, in 1982. In August this year, the Lord Howe Island Environmental Survey Group won the 18 |
AM Research Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. From 1969-1973, Recher led this survey group, which included scientists from the AM, the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, CSIRO and several universities. It was the first comprehensive census of the island’s wildlife. While Recher’s team concluded that most of the native wildlife was faring well, feral pests such as cats, rats, pigs and goats, had caused considerable damage to the island’s vegetation and the extinction of several bird species. “When we worked there, the Lord Howe Island Woodhen had been driven to the point of near extinction,” he says. “About 19 to 23 individuals were left and all were close to the summit of Mount Gower.” The team recommended a reserve be created on the island to protect the remaining natural vegetation and species, along with a captive breeding program for the Woodhen. They also recommended that weeds and exotic pests be controlled or eradicated on the island. The Recher Report became a gold standard in the island’s future environmental planning, forming the rationale for the World Heritage listing. Recher was born and raised in New York City. He studied forestry and zoology at Syracuse University and obtained a PhD at Stanford,
BY MELINDA HAM
followed by a Post Doc at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Princeton. He came to Australia in 1967 as a lecturer in zoology at the University of Sydney. The following year, he joined the AM as head of its new Environmental Studies team.
cleared and there was still a lot of birdlife,” he says. “We did an extensive census of the whole area.” The work led the Forestry Commission to adopt management practices to conserve forest wildlife and mitigate the impacts of logging.
This role thrust him to the forefront of environmental issues in Australia. “In those days, museum people were encouraged, actually enabled, to communicate with the public,” he says. He was one of a few scientists willing to give evidence in court on forestry cases, on behalf of conservation groups challenging logging practices.
During the 1970s (in collaboration with the AM’s Dr Pat Hutchings, Senior Principal Research Scientist Marine Invertebrates Collection), Recher studied estuarine and mangrove ecology of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Catchment. That work led to the protection of important mangrove and seagrass habitats within the estuary.
His research on small mammals – particularly Antechinus and Rattus – in the Nadgee Nature Reserve, in southeastern NSW, began in 1969. Almost half a century later, it is one of the longest-running animal studies in Australia.
He has also researched long-term changes in birds in Kings Park in Perth, Western Australia’s Great Western Woodland, in the Pilliga in central NSW and the nomadic and migratory honeyeaters of Brisbane Waters National Park.
Recher studied the foraging and breeding ecology of eucalypt woodland and forest birds, and the long-term effects of fire on heathland birds, challenging conventional management and conservation practices.
Recher has had a lifetime friendship with Stanford ecologist Professor Paul Ehrlich – author of the Population Bomb and shares his controversial views on population growth. “It’s a finite world,” he says. “We need to stop consuming so much and use resources more efficiently. We’re too preoccupied with wanting material wealth.”
He also examined the ecological impact of the Eden Woodchip Industry in a joint study between the AM, the NSW Forestry Commission and Harris-Daishowa Pty. Ltd (Australia’s oldest woodchip mill). “We camped right where the bush had been
Above left: Harry Recher at the AMRI Lifetime Achievement award Above: Photo taken during the Lord Howe Island Survey in 1971
EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 19
COVER STORY BY MELINDA HAM
Return of the
Mammoths Colossal creatures of the Ice Age roam down under for the first time. She still has most of her hair, teeth, eyelashes, soft tissue and internal organs. Her hide will last forever, freeze-dried and preserved in formalin to mummify her. Baby Lyuba (which means “Love” in Russian) is a 42,000-yearold woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) calf, the most intact mammoth specimen in the world. She’s heading to the Australian Museum in November, direct from Siberia, as the star attraction of the exhibition Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age. "Visitors will be able to get up close and personal to Lyuba,” says Lisa Loader, a Creative Producer at the AM, who negotiated the loan of Lyuba from The Yamal-Nenets Regional Museum Exhibition Complex named after I. S. Shemanovsky over 11 months. “They’ll be separated by glass but they’ll only be about 50 centimetres away.” The Field Museum in Chicago created this travelling mammoth exhibition and the AM will be its only Southern Hemisphere stop. The extensive show explores not only how these Ice Age creatures lived – forming herds similar in social structure to those of modern elephants – but also considers how they likely became extinct, perhaps because of the impact of climate change, human hunting and other factors. “The exhibition brings natural history to life and gets us closer to knowing what these animals were like,” says Kim McKay AO, AM Director and CEO. “While Australia did have our own unique prehistoric megafauna, mammoths never lived on our continent – so this may be the only chance for curious locals to learn more about these amazing giants.”
The story of Baby Lyuba About 400,000 years ago in the middle Pleistocene, woolly mammoths first appeared in the frozen north of Siberia. They then spread to North America and Europe during the last Ice Age. They were hairy, lumbering, elephant-like creatures, some standing more than four metres high, with immense curved ivory tusks used for fighting and foraging for food. Highly adapted to the cold, they had a two centimetre-thick hide, eight centimetres of body fat, a dense undercoat and small, fur-lined ears. 20 |
International scientists put Lyuba through a battery of tests. Photograph Š International Mammoth Committee/Francis Latreille
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Left: In the field, scientists rarely find complete skeletons of mammoths. Photograph © Nigel Larkin Right: Reindeer herders find mammoth tusks throughout Siberia. Mammoth ivory is a legal alternative to elephant ivory. Photograph © Francis Latreille Below: Illustration by Velizar Simeonovski
Fast-forward tens of thousands of years to 2007. An indigenous Siberian reindeer herder, Yuri Khudi, stumbled upon Lyuba and knew she was an important find. Khudi didn’t touch the mammoth calf carcass but went away to get someone with more authority, only to find on his return that the Ice Age baby had disappeared. Lyuba eventually turned up, propped up against someone’s house, bartered for two snowmobiles and a year’s worth of food. Dogs had gnawed off her right ear and her tail. The police confiscated the calf and took her by helicopter to the Shemanovsky Yamal-Nenets Regional Museum Exhibition Complex. Over the next few months, international scientists put Lyuba through a battery of tests to determine her provenance. After their research, they hypothesised that the calf was preserved in lactic acid produced by a bacterium that invaded her body after death, essentially “pickling” her soft tissues. They also removed DNA samples so they could carbon-date her. They discovered that she was about 42,000 years old, although she’d only been alive for a month when she drowned in a muddy river. Scientists in Russia and Japan did extensive tests on her, including a CT scan that revealed her organs were intact. Her intestines still contained adult mammoth faeces, showing that she followed the same behaviour as her elephant cousins, eating her mother’s faeces to fill her gut with microbes, to prepare her body to digest grass. Since her discovery 10 years ago, Lyuba has travelled to only four countries around the world. Coming to Sydney, she’ll be accompanied by her own Russian curator. They will have a stopover in Dubai on their way here. “We’ve arranged a special cool dolly to pick her up on the tarmac and transfer her to the next plane,” Loader says. Once at Sydney Airport, she’ll be transported on an air-conditioned truck to the AM, where she’ll be kept in a constant-temperature controlled environment.
The exhibition Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age is the most comprehensive exhibition on mammoths to come to Australia. Including Lyuba, there are 95 objects and specimens coming to the AM in 11 shipping containers. 22 |
“It takes about four days to unload and their contents include actual mammoth bones and teeth, a whole mammoth skull and tusks, fossils, human artefacts depicting mammoths and plants from the period. And of course mammoth tusks,” says Trevor Ahearn, AM’s Creative Producer Exhibitions. To actively engage visitors in the whole mammoth era, the exhibition includes seven interactive exhibits. “You can try a tusk-wrestling game to see what it felt like when mammoths fought,” says Ahearn. “You’ll find out how they used their tusks to establish dominance. You can also try head balancing, illustrating how they wielded such massive heads efficiently, and jousting – I think some animals literally bashed into each other!”
“People should really grasp the size of these animals and the context in which they lived.”
The exhibition includes other interactive displays on mammoths’ diets, faeces, habitats and communication, along with cave paintings about mammoths. Visitors can also watch seven videos featuring experts discussing how Lyuba was found, plus extinction theories, mammoth behaviour, habitat, tusks and modern elephant conservation. Also on display will be 25 cases that include objects sculptured from mammoth ivory, such as Venus figurines, jewellery and tools. Visitors can also walk among eight re-created models, including: • a towering four-metre high life-size adult mammoth • Gomphotherium – a prehistoric elephant that lived approximately 15 million to 5 million years ago, from the Early Miocene through the Early Pliocene Periods • a Moeritherium – another prehistoric elephant relative that lived approximately 37 to 35 million years ago during the Late Eocene Period but looks similar to a modern hippo • an Arctodus, or Short-Nosed Arctic Bear • a Scimitar-toothed lion “The big models mean that people should really grasp the size of these animals and the context in which they lived,” says Ahearn. “The audiovisuals, interactives and chance to just touch and feel teeth or a skull, as well as seeing authentic objects, should really help them understand the period.”
Lyuba on exhibition. Photograph © Field Museum, Chicago
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American Scimitar-toothed cat (Homotherium serum) on exhibition. Photograph Š Field Museum, Chicago
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Mammoth timeline
65 million years ago Mass extinction of all dinosaurs; The Age of Mammals begins
35 million years ago Moeritherium thrives in northern Africa
2.5 million years ago Ice Age (Pleistocene Epoch) begins
Mammoth facts
55 million years ago Proboscidean order originates in Africa
8 million years ago The first hominids, ancestors of modern humans, originate in Africa
LATE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD 200,000 to 10,000 BCE
200,000 years ago Modern humans (Homo sapiens) first appear in Africa
32,000 years ago Earliest cave paintings are created in what is now France 12,000 years ago Ice Age ends
10,000 years ago Most mammoths and mastodons are extinct, save for smaller, dwarf species
Today Elephants – the last of the proboscideans – survive in Africa and Asia
40,000 years ago Lyuba dies in what is now Russia
13,000 years ago Clovis culture thrives in North America
¡¡ In 1796, French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier found fossilised remains in Siberia. He claimed they were different from the bones of the modern-day elephant and so recognised the mammoth as a distinct species: a long-lost cousin of the elephant. ¡¡ The woolly mammoth grew hair up to a metre long with a fine layer of wool underneath, giving it the “woolly” name. ¡¡ The mammoth had small ears and a short tail, a two-centimetre-thick hide and eight centimetres of fat to contain body heat and to insulate against freezing temperatures. ¡¡ The mammoth spent 18 hours a day drinking up to 80 litres of water and eating 180 kilograms of grass. ¡¡ Its diet consisted of 90 per cent grass and 10 per cent flowering plants, buds or bark. ¡¡ At birth, the infant mammoth measured 70 centimetres in height and weighed 70 kilograms. By the end of its life, at around 60 years old, it would be three metres high and weigh five tonnes. ¡¡ The mammoth changed its teeth five times between the ages of six months and 40 years. It had 10 teeth – four molars on top, four down below and the two incisors – the tusks! ¡¡ 100 kilograms of trunk muscle guaranteed the mammoth strength and flexibility to tear away at tall grasses. ¡¡ The woolly mammoth was not the only type of mammoth. At least seven species either coexisted or succeeded each other. ¡¡ Providing two tonnes of edible meat, fat and bone marrow, as well as 215 bones of all shapes and sizes, the mammoth was a considerable resource for Palaeolithic man. Its tusks were sculpted into art objects or tools to construct huts for shelter or as a place of worship.
4,000 years ago The last of the dwarf mammoths die
¡¡ The last (dwarf) mammoths disappeared from Earth between 7,000 and 4,000 years ago, on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. They were just shy of being contemporaries with the Egyptian Pharaohs. ¡¡ After recent discoveries of numerous incomplete mammoths in frozen ground in Siberia, scientists are now collecting important data on the biology, physiology and DNA of this extinct animal. EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 25
PHOTO FRAME
Hidden gems of the sea The Australian Museum has one of the world’s largest collection of seaworms and also two active polychaete researchers; Dr Pat Hutchings and Dr Elena Kupriyanova. Polychaetes (segmented bristleworms) are primarily marine or estuarine animals. They live mostly on or in sediments, from the intertidal to the deepest parts of the ocean. Over 20,000 species have been described in 80-plus families. Many more are still to be described, especially from Australian waters. Seaworms range from less than a millimetre to several metres in length. They feed in many different ways; some are deposit feeders, swallowing sediment to obtain nutrients. Others are surface deposit feeders, herbivores or suspension feeders – filtering water to catch suspended particles. Some are carnivores – catching their prey with well-developed jaws or muscular throats – while others are parasitic. All photographs of live specimens taken on Lizard Island © Alexander Semenov
Above: Gastrolepidia clavigera (F. Polynoidae), with dorsal scales covering body and head. Commonly known as a scale worm, this voracious predator uses a muscular eversible pharynx. Below right: Nereis trifasciata (F. Nereididae) actively crawls through coral rubble, has well-developed head with sensory appendages allowing it to detect suitable prey items.
Above: Trypanosyllis sp. (F. Syllidae), an active predator with long red dorsal cirri with two pairs of fused eyes. Right: Megalomma interrupta (F. Sabellidae) with branchial crown expanded, forms membranous tube embedded with shell and coral fragments. Commonly known as a fan worm.
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Right: Lanice viridis (F. Terebellidae), a deposit feeder extracted from tube, with striped feeding tentacles and three pairs of branched gills. Below: Chaetopterus sp. (F. Chaetopteridae) extracted from its U-shaped parchment-like tube. It feeds by pumping water through tube and straining out food particles.
Below: Hydroides lirs (F. Serpulidae), a suspension feeder using its colourful brachial crown to catch food particles. Lives in calcareous tubes and uses an elaborated spiny plug for protection from potential intruders.
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COLLECTIONS
Discoveries find new home
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BY MELINDA HAM
A rare Tomako War Canoe from the Roviana region of the Solomon Islands
The Australian Museum’s new storage facility in northwest Sydney is a treasure trove of objects and specimens that each has its own story. Walking into the cavernous I-store in Sydney’s northwest, it’s difficult not to be overwhelmed by the size of the seven-metre-high space and the vast number of items the Australian Museum keeps here. From 20 canoes to 600 cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) and 21,000 spears, the AM holds 200,000 of its largest specimens and cultural objects in this warehouse, many of them totally irreplaceable. In total, the AM has more than 18 million specimens and objects in its collections. Less than one per cent of these items can be displayed in the AM’s public galleries at its William Street site at any one time, largely because of limited space. The rest are held behind-the-scenes. But the museum had long run out of space to store large and bulky items that were not in the public eye. Last year, the AM found a solution by joining forces with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and Sydney Living Museums. The AM now occupies about a third of the 9,000 square metre storage space – equivalent to the area of 33 tennis courts – located behind the Museums Discovery Centre, in Castle Hill. “It’s the best possible outcome,” says Colin Macgregor, the AM’s Manager of Materials Conservation. “We have been continuously collecting over 190 years and previously many objects were stored in rented spaces, then needed to be moved at the end of every lease. So now we have a place, owned by the government, where we can keep items in perpetuity.”
Culture Cultural items take up a lot of the storage space because of their size. One cabinet is full of racks of spears – 21,000 in total – from the Indigenous and Pacific collections. Many are decorated with fine EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 29
carving and interwoven with shells, beads, bones and rope. Hanging in another aisle, from floor to ceiling, are more than 20 canoes. Many are from the Pacific region, plus Australian Indigenous dugout and bark canoes, some of which are from the Gulf of Carpentaria. There is even a traditional Canadian Inuit canoe.
decades later. There are a further 600 cetacean specimens from more than 50 species dating back to 1860s. On the shelves sit some 500 seals and sea lions – some are taxidermied and others are skulls only. “This is one Shackleton brought back with him from his voyage to the Antarctic in the beginning of the 20th century,” MacGregor says.
The most visually striking object is a 14-metrelong Tomako War Canoe from the Solomon Islands – the length of about seven men lying head-to-head. “This is the largest item in the whole collection,” Macgregor says.
In other cabinets, there are drawers of 18,000 bird eggs and 4,000 hard corals and sponges collected over decades from the Great Barrier Reef and other Pacific locations, as well as eight giant tortoise shells and eight giant clams.
It’s built of black timber planks and ribs tied with rattan, and filled with black mastic (plant resin) to make it waterproof. Dating back to 1912, its dramatic, sweeping prow is patterned with tiny pieces of inlaid mother of pearl and a string of cowrie shells, adorned at the front with a figurehead of what is probably a sea spirit. It’s a copy of the canoes that were used for “head hunting” and capturing slaves in the 19th century.
The 500 fish specimens here include the holotype of the four-metre-wide Krefft’s Devil Ray (Manta alfredi), a “monster” caught in Watsons Bay in 1869. It was named after Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, who had visited Sydney the previous year. During his visit, an Irish republican tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the Prince – shooting him in the back. The AM sent photos of the ray to its namesake.
Another impressive cultural object is a barkcloth tapa – a ceremonial blanket – that may be the largest in the world; with one side 16 metres long. Decorated with natural dyes in a geometric pattern, it was last unfurled on the steps of the Sydney Opera House during its opening ceremony in 1973 and then donated by the government of Tonga to the AM. Macgregor says the Materials Conservation Department discovered signs of insect activity on the great tapa in 1996 and shipped it to a large industrial freezer near the Sydney Meat Markets for a week. It was then brought back to the AM’s William Street loading dock for vacuuming. Scores of slit-drums sit on other shelves, house-fronts from Papua New Guinea are propped against the back wall, while more than a hundred sacred Indigenous carved trees, salvaged from properties across Australia, stand in a closed-off area.
Animals The I-store’s Natural History collection boasts more than 1,500 mounted birds and mammals, including lions, tigers, bears and rhino standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The largest mammal is the skull of a Bryde’s Whale (Balaenoptera brydei), collected in 1989, which is still oozing oil almost three 30 |
Maximising space and efficiency The I-store’s five-metre high racking means that AM staff and researchers use hydraulic lifts to access items on the upper shelves. The building is designed to maximise energy efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint, while having to be temperature-controlled to preserve all the specimens and objects. The well-sealed construction and solar panels on the roof ensure expenditure on energy is kept to a minimum. “To ensure the continuity of the collection is our obligation as a museum,” says Macgregor. “Some specimens are just used for research and are never displayed. We’ve stored others for decades – like all the taxidermied exotic animals – and then we brought them out and restored them to use in Wild Planet and the Westpac Long Gallery. Something may become in demand in 20 or 100 years’ time.” Visit the combined public galleries at the Museums Discovery Centre, Monday – Friday, 10am–5pm.
CITIZEN SCIENCE
Calling all frogs Jodi Rowley with a Green Tree Frog (Litoria caerulea)
A new app created by the Australian Museum will record frogs’ calls and contribute to research about frog populations’ health and diversity nationally. Some frog calls sound like squeaky rusty door hinges, others make incessant beeping noises, while others evoke the sound of strumming on a stretched elastic band. Each species has a unique call, like a fingerprint.
of Australia’s frogs and better understand how frogs are responding to a changing planet. They’ll even try to predict future changes in frog biodiversity.
“Calls are a really great way to identify frog species – typically much more accurate than photos,” says Dr Jodi Rowley, a joint appointment between the Australian Museum and UNSW. Rowley is part of a team of AM experts behind the creation of FrogID, which includes a world-leading app to record calls to identify frog species.
“Getting a better idea of frog species distribution across Australia will inform our environmental management decisions,” Rowley says. “We might hear a call we’ve never heard before and then we’ll have to mount an expedition to find that frog – it might belong to an unknown species. It may come as a surprise that we still have many undescribed frog species in Australia.”
Harnessing citizen scientists, the AM will use data collected through FrogID to conduct the first nationwide survey of frogs. The results will allow scientists to determine with more accuracy the current distribution and conservation status
FrogID also aims to engage the public and raise awareness about frog conservation. Rowley hopes the app, which uses GPS and gamification technology, will attract not only “frog nerds” but schoolchildren, bushwalkers, EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 31
holidaymakers, farmers, environmentalists and ordinary people living in cities, farms or regional or remote areas, with an interest in frogs.
The crisis “Frogs are facing a huge crisis worldwide,” says Rowley. More than 40 per cent of all identified frog species face extinction – more than any other vertebrate group on the planet. In Australia, at least three species disappeared in the past century and almost one in five of the 240 described species here teeter on the brink of extinction. “Frogs are the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ when it comes to climate change,” she says. Rowley is referring to the practice in the 20th century when coal miners took canaries into mines to warn of toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide. If the canaries died, then the miners knew it was too dangerous to remain underground. In this case, the rapid disappearance of frogs is a warning about the rate of global change, Rowley says. Their physiology and life history makes them highly sensitive to environmental changes on land and in water.
How it works The FrogID app developed in collaboration with IBM, contains a few vital elements, says Paul Flemons, Manager Digital Collections and Citizen
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Science. These include the latest technology, citizen scientists and experts. Interested people can start by downloading the free app onto their mobile device. The app also identifies the location of calls using GPS. Participants are advised about safe and sensitive “frogging” and are introduced to some of the issues related to frog conservation. “Recording a call rather than taking a photograph is an important part of this message,” says Flemons. “Getting photographs sometimes means people trample fragile habitat or handle frogs, which can be detrimental to the frog’s health.” Most frogs start calling a few hours after sunset, although a few species call during the day. Frogs live in many varied places, including deserts, rainforests or even drainpipes. Once a frog call is submitted, the FrogID app will then provide a choice of frogs found in that area. The app user selects which call they think is the best audio match. The app will upload this information onto the FrogID website. “Through the website, online citizen scientists will also have the opportunity to assist the project by identifying the species in each recorded call,” Flemons says. “This provides access for people who might be mobility-challenged, not in the right area for frogs or for some reason unable to get out to an area where frogs are calling, to still participate in the project.”
Teams of online citizen scientists will be able to do the vast majority of verifications. AM scientists and other experts will only listen to the difficult frog calls to verify them. The AM already has significant experience working with citizen scientists. The museum has developed world-leading citizen science projects over the past 50 years, including the internationally acclaimed DigiVol project.
The future Australia does not have reliable, current and accurate data covering all our frogs. The FrogID app will change all that, says Flemons. The AM project will collect comprehensive data on the distribution and diversity and health of frog species across Australia and build the first national database of frog calls. Combined with historical frog distribution data, scientists will be able to use the new data captured by the FrogID project to better understand the impacts on frogs of things such as pests, habitat modification, urbanisation, pollution and environmental and climate change.
Using this data, AM scientists will also identify “frog hotspots” in urban, suburban and rural areas – finding out where there is high frog diversity and abundance, and why. This information may help planners tailor areas to be more “frog-friendly”. They also hope to develop a better understanding of Cane Toad distribution and its impact on native frogs. The app also has possibilities outside Australia, Rowley adds. “FrogID could easily be modified to use all over the world. It could even help us get some really great scientific data in places where frogs are even more poorly known, such as the remote forests of South East Asia or Central America.”
Left: Litoria latopalmata found at Condobolin, NSW; Litoria xanthomera from Tully Gorge, Queensland. Photographs © Jodi Rowley Above: The new FrogID app. Photograph by Jay Dykes
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AM DONOR
Rare bird excites lifelong passion
Chris Grubb is passionate about nature and now as a long-time Australian Museum donor, he’s supporting the display of one of Australia’s most elusive and endangered birds, the Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis). It’s among the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum exhibition in the newly opened Westpac Long Gallery.
seconds of video footage of a live Night Parrot in western Queensland. Last year, with the help of private donors and the Queensland Government, Bush Heritage bought 56,000 hectares where the bird was photographed and turned it into a nature reserve. Since then, there have been a further seven confirmed sightings.
Grubb has been a Trustee of the AM Foundation Board for nearly a decade and is president of Bush Heritage Australia - a national not-for-profit organisation that buys and manages land with significant conservation values, both directly and in partnership.
“I’ve always had a deep affinity with the bush and particularly birds,” Grubb says. As a boy growing up in South Africa, he dreamed of becoming a vet or a farmer and spent holidays camping with the Scouts and visiting game parks.
“It was fortuitous that the Night Parrot was one of the treasures,” he says. “Bush Heritage had just acquired the bit of land where the parrot was rediscovered, so supporting it at the museum fits in quite neatly.” The ground-dwelling Night Parrot has had a mysterious natural history. Its first sighting was recorded in 1845 and the last living specimen collected in Western Australia in 1912. Over the next 75 years there were only a few unconfirmed sightings. Scientists thought it was extinct until rangers found two dead specimens in 1990 and 2006, adding to the bird’s mystery. Then, in 2013, naturalist and wildlife photographer John Young took photos and a few 34 |
Instead of a career with animals, he became a professional investment fund manager for more than 40 years in Asia and Australia. Now in active semi-retirement, he immerses himself in nature either at his property in Kangaroo Valley or skiing, fishing and hiking in conjunction with his investment activities. He also donates his time and money to organisations concerned with the environment. “The museum holds millions of specimens and objects which are not on display and I am happy that this Night Parrot has emerged, as it certainly struck a chord,” Grubb says. To support the 200 Treasures exhibition by funding a treasure, contact Michel Zwecker, AM Development Manager michel.zwecker@austmus.gov.au
Thank you The Australian Museum would like to acknowledge the generous support of our donors, corporate partners and research partners in helping us realise our vision as a place of exploration and discovery. These generous individuals and organisations contribute to our scientific research, education and public programs, and assist in the acquisition of items to enrich our collections. Treasures Circle Robert Albert AO David & Megan Armstrong Ben Barham & Gretel Packer The Calvert-Jones Foundation The Carrawa Foundation Jennifer Crivelli The John Spencer Dickinson Family Warwick Evans Lily & Tina Gao & the New Business China Association Claude & Maryanne Gauchat Belinda Gibson & Jim Murphy Chris & Gina Grubb The Hartzer/Trevor-Jones Family The John & Frances Ingham Foundation Warwick & Ann Johnson Virginia Judge & daughters Cecily, Theresa, Rebecca & Dr Patrick Tooth Keith & Maureen Kerridge Jim Lennon in honour of Jean Lennon Lindblad Expeditions Catherine Livingstone AO & Michael Satterthwaite Diccon & Elizabeth Loxton Alasdair & Prue Macleod Memocorp Australia Pty Ltd Jacqui & John Mullen William Murray & Gretel Packer The Nelson Family Francesca Packer Barham & Gretel Packer The Paradice Family Foundation The Patterson Pearce Foundation The Purcell Family Endowment Fund in honour of Mrs Lorna McClelland Robert Purves AM Professor Jan Scott, Professor Ian Hickie & Paul Connor Lifetime Patron Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE
Patrons The late Senta Taft-Hendry Ann Macintosh Trust Brian Sherman AM & Dr Gene Sherman AM Chris & Gina Grubb
Alasdair & Prue Macleod Memocorp Australia Pty Ltd Helen Molesworth Benefactors Mary Holt & the late Dr John Holt Graeme Wood Foundation President’s Circle Claude & Maryanne Gauchat Chris & Gina Grubb Bill & Alison Hayward Judy Lee Diccon & Elizabeth Loxton Robert Rich Dick & Pip Smith Foundation Anonymous Director’s Club Pauline & Alan Campbell Margot & Stephanie Chinneck Jenny Crivelli Kim McKay AO Tracey Steggall Shona & David Thodey Wendy Walker Anonymous Guardians Martin & Ursula Armstrong Ken & Roddy Bell Bill & Annette Blinco The Graham & Charlene Bradley Endowment Justice Jane Mathews AO Justice Robert McDougall Alice Oppen OAM John Pearson John & Christina Stitt Vonwiller Foundation Custodians Antoinette Albert James & Belinda Allen Michelle Atkinson Christine Bishop Natalia Bradshaw Rosemary Campbell Philip Cornwell Trevor Danos AM Hugh Dixson Belinda Gibson Karina Kelly John Leece AM Howard Lewis Ann Macintosh Trust Nick & Caroline Minogue Lily W Müng Endowment Anne Pickles
David Robb Jane & Neville Rowden Alison Scott Cassandra Seaton David & Daniela Shannon Fiona Sinclair Diana Southwell-Keely Jeremy Spinak Ross Steele AM Tehmi Sukhla Anne Sullivan Vera Vargassoff Wavish Family Foundation Stephen Wilson Supporters Rae & David Allen Lauren Atmore Dinah Beeston Marco Belgiorno-Zegna AM Kerin Brown Elizabeth Cameron Chikako Carter Michael & Chrissie Crowley Margaret & Peter Donovan Ronald & Suellen Enestrom Jeffery & Christine Goss Greg & Beth Hammond Ronnie Harding Derek Heath Peter Homel Adrianne Johnson Warwick Klabe Gilles Kryger Eugenia Langley A J Loewenthal Ros Madden Ross McNair & Robin Richardson Tony & Fran Meagher David Norman Bruce Norton Judy Ranka Frank & Judith Robertson Alan & Yvonne Sebesfi Dr Fiona Sim Jacinta Spurrett Christopher Still Tom Story Francis Walsh Michael & Mary Whelan Trust Tony White AM & Doffy White Caitlin Woods Michel Zwecker Anonymous Bequests Estate of the late Clarence Chadwick Estate of the late Patricia M Porritt Estate of the late Jean Marjorie Edgecombe Estate of the late Jacqueline Heather Field Estate of the late Phillip Jack John & Maryilyn Evans on behalf of the late Christine Neild Estate of the late Merrill Pye Estate of the late Eileen Silk Estate of the late William S Tatlow Estate of the late Gwendoline A West
Estate of the late Jessie Campbell Wise Gifts to AM Collections Steven & Janine Avery Ursula Burgoyne Sam & Louise Dawson Rod & Robyn Dent in honour of Pat Dent & the Wanindilyaugwa tribe Charles M Ellias The late Paul L Fischer John L Gordon Robin Guthrie Mark Hanlon J Holliday The late John Hume Raymond Kirby AO & Mrs Deirdre Kirby Roger Langmead David Leece Leighton Llewellyn James McColl Mineralogical Society of NSW Inc Dr Max Moulds George & Edna Oakes Dorothy O’Reilly John Rankin Dr William Rieger John Rohde Paul Scully-Power AM Michael Shea Trevor Shearston The late Muriel Snell George Stacey Prof Gunther Theischinger The late Margaret Tuckson David Twine Janet Walker Anonymous PARTNERS The Australian Museum is principally funded by the NSW Government Principal Partner Westpac Major Partners 3M Adventure World ANSTO 303MullenLowe IBM Australia Stockland Media Partners JCDecaux National Geographic News Corp Australia Supporting Partners 4 Pines Brewing Company Archie Rose Distilling Co Australian Geographic City of Sydney Digital Camera Warehouse Guardian Global Systems IAS Fine Arts Logistics Kent Street Studio Oatley Fine Wine Merchants Valiant Hire
EXPLORE Summer 2017 | 35
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