Explore Magazine – Winter 2018 by Australian Museum

Explore Australian Museum magazine Winter 2018

Changing the world with FrogID Welcome, Whales TohorÄ

Contents

EXPLORE ISSN 1833-752X Winter 2018

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, 2018. 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 Alice Gage Design Trudi Fletcher Production Jenny Hooker Prepress Spitting Image Sydney Printing Green & Gold printing We welcome your feedback, comments and enquiries. Email the Editor at alice.gage@austmus.gov.au Australian Museum 1 William Street Sydney NSW 2010 Open daily 9.30am – 5pm T 02 9320 6000 (switch) T 02 9320 6225 (Members) Australian Museum Trust President David Armstrong Director & CEO Kim McKay AO Environmental responsibility Explore is printed on Revive, a 100% recycled paper. australianmuseum.net.au

Right: Jasperised wood, late Triassic (c225 million years ago), from the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, acquired 1984

04 05 06 08 10 18 20 22 24 28 31 32 35 37

What’s on From the Director Preserving the art of science Whales Tohorā comes to the AM Citizens rise! Climate in the Anthropocene Every skerrick of Eric Access all areas First of their kind Blood and bone Behind the screens Out of their shells Welcoming David Armstrong News

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 3

Contents

EXPLORE ISSN 1833-752X Winter 2018

Right: Jasperised wood, late Triassic (c225 million years ago), from the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, acquired 1984

04 05 06 08 10 18 20 22 24 28 31 32 35 37

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 3

What’s on Exhibitions

GADI Discover more about Sydney City’s Aboriginal history. Closes 24 June

Mammoths – Giants of the Ice Age Meet a 42,000-year-old baby mammoth and journey into the world of these colossal creatures. Extended to 22 July

Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Witness nature at its most graceful and unexpected with this stunning collection of wildlife photographs.

HumanNature series: Taupata, taro, roots, earth – the (Indigenous) politics of gardening A night talk by Alice Te Punga Somerville exploring the possibilities of Indigenous gardens in the Pacific region. 14 June, 6pm

JULY HumanNature series: Feminist botany for the age of man

JUNE Playgroups for preschoolers Inspire little kids to explore our world through activities led by Aboriginal educators. Fridays, 9.45am & 11am

Winhangadurinya: Aboriginal meditation Take time out from our hectic world with Aboriginal cultural practitioners as your guides.

Join Catriona Sandilands as she explores a feminist approach to our relationship with plants. 12 July, 6pm

AUGUST Sydney Science Festival at the AM – primary school week Primary students and teachers are invited to join in the biggest celebration of science for schools. 7–10 August

9 & 10 June, 10.30am & 2pm

Super Science Saturday

Jurassic Lounge: 2099

As part of Sydney Science Festival, kids’ science takes over the museum on this explosive, hands-on day.

Scientists, artists and DJs remix the museum into a giant playground for grown-ups. 16 June, 7-10.30pm

Adorned Join Aboriginal staff in the creation of jewellery inspired by nature and culture. 17 & 18 June

The future health of our environment is in our hands

24 August – 28 January 2019

Whales Tohorā Come eye-to-eye with some of the world’s most elusive creatures in this interactive exhibition. 20 October – 21 April 2019

Special events

From the Director

Lunchtime Lecture Series: Australians shaping the nation Join Layne Beachley, Ita Buttrose, Thomas Keneally, Kim McKay and George Miller as they share their inspirational stories. 21 August – 25 September

HumanNature series: American dreaming is Indigenous elimination Kim TallBear discusses how narratives of “nature” and “culture” have helped build the US empire.

As Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel noted recently, opening the door of scientific research to members of the public has the potential to change the world for the better. Citizen science reminds us “that we are part of something greater than ourselves”, he said. And it’s up to us to make the changes we’d like to see around us. I first realised the importance of people power as the co-founder and deputy chairwoman of Clean Up Australia, when we developed the Rubbish Report volunteer citizen science program for data

23 August, 6pm

collection and analysis, one of the first citizen

SEPTEMBER

science community initiatives.

Winhangadurinya: Aboriginal meditation Take time out from our hectic world with Aboriginal cultural practitioners as your guides. 1 & 2 September, 10.30am & 2pm

OCTOBER HumanNature series: Dark emu Bruce Pascoe challenges the notion of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers. 18 October, 6pm

The Australian Museum’s Centre for Citizen Science was launched in 2015 and has provided a platform for such programs to harness the power of individuals, by engaging the public with science in a practical way. Projects such as FrogID, which the AM launched last November, are great demonstrations of what an army of like-minded volunteers can achieve. Australia’s first national frog count literally puts the power to help save our most endangered group of animals in the palm of your hand, through the free FrogID app.

11 August

Jurassic Lounge: Halloween

Sydney Science Festival at the AM – secondary school week

Scientists, artists and DJs remix the museum into a giant playground for grown-ups.

more than 20,000 frog calls submitted by citizen

27 October, 7–10.30pm

to Tasmania. Of Australia’s 240 native frog species,

Secondary students and teachers are invited to join in the biggest celebration of science for schools. 14–17 August

In only a matter of months, we have seen scientists from across the country, from the Top End 155 have been identified through the support of

AM scientists will analyse the data collected and count and map the frogs, giving us good insights into the biodiversity of our native frog species and the health of our waterways and changing climate. FrogID has also attracted the support of the natural history museums around Australia as well as major support from IBM and the Federal Government through an Inspiring Australia Grant. Recently, Bunnings has joined as a supporter showing the public and schools how to build a frog pond, while Fyna Foods is supporting us with their chocolate frogs, which are palm oil free. Having great numbers of people on the ground is essential to understanding the impact of our changing climate, particularly on a continent as vast as Australia. This year, many of my museum goals are about empowering people to take positive action for the protection and preservation of our environment, through citizen science projects such as FrogID, Australasian Fishes, DigiVol, Cockatoo Wingtags and Streamwatch. The relationship between science and society will only grow stronger. With that in mind, I would like to thank our tens of thousands of citizen scientists, whose numbers are growing each day, for their unfailing passion and dedication. There is so much that we can achieve together by opening the world of science to everyone. Kim McKay AO Director and CEO

our growing community of volunteer “FrogID’ers”. EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 5

What’s on Exhibitions

GADI Discover more about Sydney City’s Aboriginal history. Closes 24 June

Mammoths – Giants of the Ice Age Meet a 42,000-year-old baby mammoth and journey into the world of these colossal creatures. Extended to 22 July

Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Witness nature at its most graceful and unexpected with this stunning collection of wildlife photographs.

JULY HumanNature series: Feminist botany for the age of man

JUNE Playgroups for preschoolers Inspire little kids to explore our world through activities led by Aboriginal educators. Fridays, 9.45am & 11am

Winhangadurinya: Aboriginal meditation Take time out from our hectic world with Aboriginal cultural practitioners as your guides.

Join Catriona Sandilands as she explores a feminist approach to our relationship with plants. 12 July, 6pm

AUGUST Sydney Science Festival at the AM – primary school week Primary students and teachers are invited to join in the biggest celebration of science for schools. 7–10 August

9 & 10 June, 10.30am & 2pm

Super Science Saturday

Jurassic Lounge: 2099

As part of Sydney Science Festival, kids’ science takes over the museum on this explosive, hands-on day.

Scientists, artists and DJs remix the museum into a giant playground for grown-ups. 16 June, 7-10.30pm

Adorned Join Aboriginal staff in the creation of jewellery inspired by nature and culture. 17 & 18 June

The future health of our environment is in our hands

24 August – 28 January 2019

Whales Tohorā Come eye-to-eye with some of the world’s most elusive creatures in this interactive exhibition. 20 October – 21 April 2019

Special events

From the Director

HumanNature series: American dreaming is Indigenous elimination Kim TallBear discusses how narratives of “nature” and “culture” have helped build the US empire.

23 August, 6pm

collection and analysis, one of the first citizen

SEPTEMBER

science community initiatives.

Winhangadurinya: Aboriginal meditation Take time out from our hectic world with Aboriginal cultural practitioners as your guides. 1 & 2 September, 10.30am & 2pm

OCTOBER HumanNature series: Dark emu Bruce Pascoe challenges the notion of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers. 18 October, 6pm

11 August

Jurassic Lounge: Halloween

Sydney Science Festival at the AM – secondary school week

Scientists, artists and DJs remix the museum into a giant playground for grown-ups.

more than 20,000 frog calls submitted by citizen

27 October, 7–10.30pm

to Tasmania. Of Australia’s 240 native frog species,

Secondary students and teachers are invited to join in the biggest celebration of science for schools. 14–17 August

In only a matter of months, we have seen scientists from across the country, from the Top End 155 have been identified through the support of

our growing community of volunteer “FrogID’ers”. EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 5

Preserving the art of science Meet the recipients of the inaugural Australian Museum Scientific Illustration Scholarship Samantha Bayly grew up on a two-hectare property near Port Macquarie, with a Shetland pony, rabbits, cows, dogs, birds and two donkeys named Frida and Fabio. She spent much of her childhood sitting in the backyard and sketching the animals, learning how to craft their shapes, sizes and colours. “My mum does a lot of fine art and she loves animals … I suppose I got those things from her.” Bayly and fellow student Lucia Garces – both undertaking the University of Newcastle’s Bachelor of Natural History Illustration course – are the co-winners of the inaugural 2017 Australian Museum Scientific Illustration Scholarship. Launched in the AM’s 190th year at the opening of the Transformations: Art of the Scott Sisters exhibition, the scholarship aims to celebrate Harriet and Helena Scott’s legacy as early female pioneers in the field of science. The scholarship is open to women and men enrolled in scientific illustration courses at a tertiary level. Bayly’s interest in illustrating the creatures around her was not unlike the passion that drove the sisters some 160 years earlier. In 1846, Harriet and Helena, aged 16 and 14 respectively, moved from Sydney to isolated Ash Island in the Hunter River estuary with their mother, Harriet Calcott, and father, entomologist and entrepreneur Alexander Walker Scott. There, 6|

surrounded by pristine native vegetation and under the tutelage of their artistic father, their shared fascination with the natural world grew. For almost 20 years, the sisters lived and worked on the island, recording its flora and fauna, especially the butterflies and moths. The AM scholarship aims to highlight the continued importance of the time-honoured practice. After all, how else do you show the muscular system of a climbing possum, or the legs of a butterfly when the real specimen is damaged? “Even in the modern age of high-resolution imaging, scientific illustration is still an invaluable resource to the natural sciences and a skill our scientists value highly in peers,” says Dr Rebecca Johnson, director of the Australian Museum Research Institute. Bayly says, “There’s a quality in natural subjects that photography doesn’t do justice – it can’t capture vibrancy the way illustration can.” As well as receiving $5000 each, Bayly and Garces will also be invited to participate in further activities at the AM to enhance their practice, including rare access to the museum collection and mentoring from AMRI scientists.

Above: Samantha Bayly, White Ibis, watercolour illustration, 2018 Left: Lucia Garces, Bidens pilosa, watercolour illustration, 2018

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 7

Above: Samantha Bayly, White Ibis, watercolour illustration, 2018 Left: Lucia Garces, Bidens pilosa, watercolour illustration, 2018

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 7

Exhibition

Whales Tohorā comes to the AM

1.5m tall and weighs 180kg A Blue Whale’s heart is about

Whale Fast Facts

Fran Dorey gives us a taste of this upcoming exhibition about the giants of the deep The world’s “first” whale was only two metres long, with unusually heavy bones and eyes positioned close together on top of its skull. It had the body shape of a land mammal, with a long thin tail. Stranger still, this ancient species of whale had four legs and could walk. It had an ear with features only found in whales, along with unusually heavy bones and eyes positioned close together on top of the skull – all adaptations for a lifestyle that was at least partially aquatic. The 50-million-year-old Pakicetus attocki was not alone when out of the water. Sitting alongside this little-known species in the Australian Museum’s forthcoming blockbuster exhibition Whales Tohorā, which opens on 20 October, will be Ambulocetus natans, Latin for “walking whale that swims”. With Ambulocetus, which was discovered in Pakistan in 1992, whales moved another step closer to the life aquatic of their modern counterparts. The species had a nose with adaptations that helped it swallow while under water and its bone chemistry suggests it lived partly in fresh water, possibly where rivers met the sea. The remarkable story of whale evolution is just one of the many themes to discover in Whales Tohorā. Making a splash for over a decade in North America, this interactive and immersive exhibition, developed by Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand, is finally hitting our shores. Its success speaks to the fascination we have with this group of animals. Whales have long captured our imaginations. We have revered and mythologised them, hunted them to the brink of extinction, studied their biology and passionately protected them. These varied responses are explored through 8|

beautifully told stories, innovative technology and an array of scientific and cultural objects. An interactive display will see visitors plunge underwater with a Sperm Whale as it dives to catch giant squid. Champion divers, these whales can stay underwater for almost two hours and reach depths of 2000 metres. Visitors might also venture inside a life-size model of a Blue Whale’s heart. The largest creature ever to have lived on Earth, including dinosaurs, the Blue Whale can grow to 30m long and its heart is the size of a VW Beetle. The aorta is big enough for visitors to climb inside, which is not something you might see in your average exhibition. Te Papa has one of the world’s most extensive marine mammal collections, including the largest collection of beaked whales, along with unusual species such as the Pygmy Right Whale and Hector’s Dolphin. The exhibition will showcase various types and sizes of whale skeletons and skulls, including the skeleton of an 18m male Sperm Whale – the largest toothed predator on the planet. Many curious facts about whales, including their ancient walking ancestors, are little known. Did you know that Killer Whales are actually dolphins? Whales, dolphins and porpoises are all cetaceans. The exhibition’s powerful combination of interactive science and cultural storytelling brings the world of whales to life. Coming eye-to-eye with some of the world’s most elusive creatures is an experience unlike any other. Whales Tohorā opens 20 October

Humpback Whales can grow to

20m in length Humpback Whales can weigh up to

40,000kg

Humpback Whales can hold their breath for

40 minutes Humpback Whale lungs are as big as a

small car

The largest brain on Earth belongs to the Sperm Whale

The Sperm Whale’s call is

230 decibels

(that’s louder than a jet engine)

Human brain

A Blue Whale can eat up to

3500kg of krill

Blue Whale

Sperm Whale brain

Humpback Whale

Sperm Whale

per day

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 9

Exhibition

Whales Tohorā comes to the AM

1.5m tall and weighs 180kg A Blue Whale’s heart is about

Whale Fast Facts

Humpback Whales can grow to

20m in length Humpback Whales can weigh up to

40,000kg

Humpback Whales can hold their breath for

40 minutes Humpback Whale lungs are as big as a

small car

The largest brain on Earth belongs to the Sperm Whale

The Sperm Whale’s call is

230 decibels

(that’s louder than a jet engine)

Human brain

A Blue Whale can eat up to

3500kg of krill

Blue Whale

Sperm Whale brain

Humpback Whale

Sperm Whale

per day

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 9

Feature

Citizens rise! “This is something I can do for frogs, for the whole environment”

The Australian Museum’s citizen science projects are helping change the world for the better, writes Alice Gage

Top frogger It’s 10pm in Bees Creek, a rural town on Elizabeth River about 30 kilometres south of Darwin. Matt has wheeled the bins out to the top of his driveway. Instead of going straight back inside, he lingers, watching the dry lightning on the horizon. Matt’s ears adjust to the orchestra of frog calls coming from bushland surrounding his home. He walks back to the house to grab his phone, headlamp and walking stick – to ward off snakes – and heads down to the lagoons. He will spend the next hour recording frog calls for the Australian Museum’s citizen science project, FrogID. Matt’s nights often end up this way – since the launch of FrogID in November 2017, he has become its “top frogger”, single-handedly submitting more than 600 frog call records. For Matt, a self-described “jack of all trades” with no scientific background, his interest in FrogID was sparked by seeing the destruction wreaked by Cane Toads on native fauna and flora. “It’s an uphill battle, trying to eradicate the Cane Toads. FrogID is one way I can help the situation. The Cane Toads are massive and protected by thick body armour. And the frogs are so soft and small by comparison – I’ve seen Cane Toads catch and eat frogs in front of my eyes.” Matt’s 10 hectares is a natural corridor to the Elizabeth River, only one hectare of which is fenced. The rest is left open so that wildlife can access the river. He is passionate about the local ecosystem. “I’ve always done things for myself. This is something I can do for frogs, for the whole environment. It makes me feel good that I’m not doing it for money.” The app, developed by the Australian Museum in partnership with IBM, enables anyone with a smartphone in their pocket to plot frog locations. The crowdsourcing initiative enables infinitely more data points to be obtained than a scientist could ever dream of. This approach is revolutionising the research process and it goes right to the heart of what citizen science is all about: regular people making the world a better place. The FrogID smartphone app has logged around 20,000 frog call submissions since its launch in November

10 |

“Frogs are in trouble and Australia has a pretty bad track record when it comes to frog conservation. We’ve already lost at least four of our 240 known native frog species,” says Dr Jodi Rowley, chief scientist on the FrogID project EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 11

Feature

Citizens rise! “This is something I can do for frogs, for the whole environment”

The Australian Museum’s citizen science projects are helping change the world for the better, writes Alice Gage

10 |

The Australian Museum’s Manager of Digital Collections and Citizen Science Paul Flemons agrees that this desire is a major driver of involvement. “Citizens want to make a difference in their community and they’re showing they have the ability to be involved in science,” he says. “Their engagement is being driven by a genuine concern for the local environment, particularly where they feel not enough is being done to protect it. They become involved in monitoring, investigating, documenting and analysing and this can lead to real changes in policy.” Streamwatch is a citizen science program that enables community groups to monitor the quality and health of their local waterways. Bryan and Margaret Smith are Streamwatch volunteers who help monitor Redbank Creek, a tributary of the Hawkesbury River that they identified as being at risk of pollution from real estate developments. In November 2015, the Smiths notified Hawkesbury City Council of increasing turbidity levels in the creek. Subsequent site inspections revealed unlawful sediment runoff and erosion. The council immediately ordered developers to stop work until controls were put back in place, and the ongoing provision of monthly third-party water-quality assessments. As a condition of ongoing developer activity, the Smiths must also receive these assessments. “A highlight of our involvement is the opportunity to make a difference by publicly exposing the council’s lack of environmental responsibility towards protecting the creek,” they say.

Above: Streamwatch volunteers monitor the health of waterways in and around Sydney Right: In the DigiVol lab at the Australian Museum, volunteers photograph objects and specimens from the AM collection, transcribe their labels and add them to a publicly-accessible database

and curator of amphibian and reptile conservation biology at the Australian Museum Research Institute and University of New South Wales.

It’s not just the volunteers who are benefiting; it’s clear the scientists share their enthusiasm. Jodi Rowley of FrogID says, “It’s such an amazing thing to have all these submissions coming in across Australia every night. It’s humbling, but exciting to be part of something so big and so important!”

“Many more are perched on the edge of extinction, with 29 species of Australian frogs listed as threatened.” The gaps in our knowledge of native amphibians have made it difficult to protect them. Rowley estimates there are dozens of frog species yet to be officially named or identified, and of the known species, we’re often not sure where they’re distributed, what habitat they require or whether they’re thriving or threatened. “This is a huge issue. If we don’t know what frogs are where, then we can’t properly take them into account in important land-use decisions, such as where to locate a national park or building development,” Rowley says. Matt is one of more than 11,000 Australians who have taken up the call to join FrogID. Over 24,000 verified calls of 155 of the country’s 240 known native frogs and Cane Toads have been put on the map – an amazing start to a multi-year project. Volunteers like Matt are driving what is set to become the biggest citizen science project in Australian history.

Making the world a better place Presenting the keynote speech at February’s Australian Citizen Science Association Conference in Adelaide, Australia's Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel outlined three “big criteria” for any great citizen science endeavour to succeed. Making the world a better place was one of them. “In the end, that’s what makes it worth doing,” he said. “We often focus on the ‘science’ part of citizen science. But the ‘citizen’ is important as well. It reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves.” 12 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 13

and curator of amphibian and reptile conservation biology at the Australian Museum Research Institute and University of New South Wales.

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 13

Good data There’s more to citizen science than tea, cake and community spirit (although those things certainly don’t go astray) – high-quality data also made Finkel’s criteria for successful programs. “Citizen science has to be good science, consistent with the rigorous standards we apply to every other experimental process,” he said. Practically applied, this means arming volunteers with the knowledge to complete tasks, collect specimens and submit findings accurately. Technological innovation has gone a long way to improve the quality of citizen scientists’ output by automating and streamlining processes. FrogID owes its national coverage and prolific data collection to an easy-to-use smartphone app. DigiVol, the Australian Museum’s digitisation project, is utilising on-site and online volunteers to photograph its millions of specimens and objects and transcribe their labels, making the collection globally discoverable. And the citizen scientists contributing to Cockatoo Wingtags – a Sydney project held in conjunction with Sydney University and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney that tracks 140 tagged cockatoos to find out how they are adapting to living in the city – are social media users, posting images of the birds with a designated hashtag. In the past, scientists have been reluctant to use data collated via citizen science, owing to potential mistakes and unknown variabilities. This is changing, however, as organisations work to improve their processes. For the Australian Museum’s citizen science projects, on-site and online training, instructions, tutorials and easy-to-use workflows are all provided. Some projects, such as DigiVol, also have live forums for volunteers to chat with experts. “With the right guidance and support,” Flemons says, “there’s no reason why citizen scientists can’t produce the same level of data quality as paid staff.” In many citizen science projects, professional scientists are at the receiving end of the data, checking volunteer submissions. FrogID has a team of people constantly validating; Jodi Rowley herself listens to hundreds of calls a week to confirm the identity of the recorded frogs. For really difficult recordings – which

Far right: The DigiVol team has digitised almost one million specimen labels, field notebooks and wildlife images from across the globe, including thousands of tiny insects from the AM Entomology collection Right: Cockatoo #077, named Doepel, spotted by a citizen scientist on a balcony in Cremorne. This image was submitted to Cockatoo Wingtags, an online crowdsourcing project that is tracking the movements of 140 individual cockatoos in Sydney

may be of a rare frog or containing the hoots and croaks of multiple species – two to four people will be on hand to concur. Expert oversight is necessary, Rowley says, but the time required is just a tiny fraction of what it would take if the project was not being crowdsourced. “I could spend a lifetime trying, without success, to record the call of Spencer’s Burrowing Frog (Platyplectrum spenceri), a species that pops up in the arid zone of Australia and calls after heavy rain, often for only a night or two a year,” Rowley says. “But we’ve already received more recordings of the call of this poorly-known species than I believe have ever existed before now. It’s utterly amazing.”

A door to the world of science In every citizen science project, there is “the long tail”: a majority of volunteers contributing casually, and a small number of people who are very passionate and involved. An example of the latter is Megan Edey, DigiVol’s top contributor. A retiree with no background in science, Edey volunteers one day a week in the DigiVol lab, as well as online when at home. Edey is responsible for almost 12% of the total contributions on DigiVol – amounting to just shy of 180,000 data tasks. Inviting people with no scientific background into the world of science is Finkel’s final criterion for a successful citizen science project. “Citizen science has to be a door to the world of science… [so that] everyone who enters feels a magnetic attraction to stay. Even if they gave up in science in high school. Especially if they gave up science in high school!” To illustrate his point, Finkel told the story of what might be Australia’s first citizen science project. In 1847, colonial botanist Ferdinand Mueller used newspaper advertisements to call for volunteers to help him collect specimens of every plant in Australia. The novel project continued for 40 years and involved 1300 Australians.

14 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 15

14 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 15

“One of the women was Mary Kennedy. Imagine her life. She lived on a sheep station in Wilcannia on the Darling River in New South Wales. She was the mother of 11 children. And she collected more than 500 plants for Ferdinand Mueller,” Finkel said. Democratising science isn’t just about social policy, he argues, but boots on the ground and a willingness to get dirty. “Ferdinand Mueller wasn’t particularly interested in social policy. He was an opportunist, plain and simple! He recruited kids because they were enthusiastic and happy to wade through mud. He recruited women because he saw their talent going to waste.”

The future of citizen science In coming years, having people on the ground will be essential to understanding the impact of our rapidly changing climate. So the increase in the popularity of citizen science, helped in no small way by advances in technology, is a great advantage to the science and research community. What will citizen science’s impact be in the 21st century? One thing is for sure – the relationship between society and science will only grow stronger. Society will continue to be enriched by the reinvigoration of scientific curiosity. Paul Flemons hopes that through hands-on experiences, people will be inspired by nature and pass on that appreciation to their friends and children. They will be motivated by seeing that change at the highest level is possible because of their contributions. “I also think citizen scientists will increasingly be involved, not just in data collection, but in initiating and co-creating projects with professional scientists,” Flemons says. Science will benefit from large-scale, long-term projects that would otherwise be impossible to conduct. Scientists hope that public engagement and changing attitudes will encourage governments to increase funding of science. That citizen science will enable scientific discoveries that affect legislation, the protection of national and marine parks, and the investment in innovative strategies to halt the effects of climate change. It seems that the future really is in our hands.

Get involved in the AM’s citizen science projects FrogID Download the app and join the nation-wide challenge to record the calls of Australian frogs. Go to frogid.net.au DigiVol Unlock the secrets of the Australian Museum collections and those of institutions all over the world by helping digitise objects and specimens and their labels. 16 |

Australasian Fishes

Streamwatch

Upload your underwater images of fishes and help us learn more about their populations.

Connect with volunteers in your local area and keep waterways healthy.

Cockatoo Wingtags

It doesn’t matter where you live, how old you are or whether you’ve ever been involved in science before – get involved and help make the world a better place!

Record your sightings of cockies with yellow tags and contribute to our knowledge of their habits. Hollows for Homes Register hollows in Sydney’s trees and assist in protecting the homes of local wildlife.

Find out more at australianmuseum.net.au/ australian-museum-centrefor-citizen-science

Citizen scientist in focus: Andrew Trevor-Jones Australasian Fishes is a crowdsourcing project that asks divers and other recreational water users to upload their images of fishes to learn more about populations, migration and habitats. “I have dived every weekend since April 2013. I also dive on weekdays. In fact, if I'm not working, I’m diving. When I dive I take my camera and I take photographs of the many organisms I see. When I get home, I upload the photographs to Australasian Fishes, a project initiated by the Australian Museum’s Ichthyology collection manager Mark McGrouther. As more observations are submitted, a picture is built up of where and when different fishes have been observed, adding to our understanding of those species. It is hoped the project will eventually allow users to easily identify fishes in the Australasian region. Uploading my photographs is easy. All I then have to do is upload the observation to Australasian Fishes, add a couple of observation fields and submit. It doesn't take long before other members see my observations and confirm my identification or suggest a different identification. The process is so easy. I encourage all people that take photographs of fishes in Australia or New Zealand to submit their photographs to Australasian Fishes.”

Andrew Trevor-Jones, a contributor to Australasian Fishes, at work near Bare Island, La Perouse. Photograph by Dallas Kilponen

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 17

Australasian Fishes

Streamwatch

Upload your underwater images of fishes and help us learn more about their populations.

Connect with volunteers in your local area and keep waterways healthy.

Cockatoo Wingtags

It doesn’t matter where you live, how old you are or whether you’ve ever been involved in science before – get involved and help make the world a better place!

Find out more at australianmuseum.net.au/ australian-museum-centrefor-citizen-science

Andrew Trevor-Jones, a contributor to Australasian Fishes, at work near Bare Island, La Perouse. Photograph by Dallas Kilponen

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 17

Night talks

Climate in the Anthropocene Professor Mike Hulme of the University of Cambridge explores our evolving notion of climate The idea of climate mediates between the human experience of weather and cultural ways of living that are animated by that experience. The idea transforms the raw perception of a turbulent and untamed atmosphere – and the associated phenomena we call weather – into recognisable and expected patterns of atmospheric behaviour and performance. Although not fully predictable, these patterned elements of climate enable expectations of normal weather to be constructed. This then allows recognition of the abnormal. To say that today is “exceptionally warm for the time of year” or that “we haven’t seen much rain this spring” are claims possible only because of the normalising idea of climate. Yet there has always been an underlying tension and imaginative unease about the integrity of climate. Increasingly, people have altered their weather worlds, whether deliberately or accidentally, whether locally or at scale, whether mandated or not. The reach of human agency has now so extended into the skies that in a new century, the old assumptions about a stable climate are unmasked. Climates are changing and the old reassurances offered by the idea of climate no longer hold. Instead, the idea of the Anthropocene reveals the power humans now have of composing the worlds that future generations of humans and nonhumans will live in. These worlds of manufactured nature consist not only of our bodies, robots, cities, species or ecosystems. They now also extend to the atmosphere and include new weather worlds 18 |

that are “in-the-making”. Climate can no longer be thought about imaginatively, nor used normatively, as it was in the past. The idea of climate no longer carries the same reassuring guidance for acting in the world. So what imaginative resources do we have to guide weather-shaping practices in the Anthropocene? One suggestion is to use gardening as a metaphor for thinking about human attitudes towards weather-making. Gardeners require virtues of humility, cheerfulness and attentiveness as they go about their work. Gardens are, of course, a joint product of human imagination and skill, working with and through processes of soil conditioning, photosynthesis and the weather. There is a mutuality in which – at least in the best gardens – human vision and virtuous intention can find expression, alongside a celebration of the freedoms possessed by plants, animal life and soil.

of the Anthropocene will come to reflect the moral standing of humanity. Our moral triumphs and failures on Earth – the struggles between corruption and justice, greed and generosity, ignorance and ingenuity, hubris and humility – will be reflected in the sky.

Applying this metaphor to the future of climate moves the emphasis away from impossible ambitions to re-secure climate through modernist projects of control, whether these be through solar climate engineering, carbon dioxide removal technologies or even through re-engineering the world’s energy economy. Instead, it prompts us to think in terms of improvisation, of working with nature to fashion outcomes that are neither fully predictable nor fixed. And just as the garden reflects the virtues of the gardener, so we see that the weather worlds of the Anthropocene will come increasingly to reflect the virtues, or vices, of the Anthropos. To an extent greater than ever before, the weather

The metaphor of gardening also highlights a further, somewhat paradoxical, point: the gardener always recognises the limits to his or her cultivating and coaxing powers. So too in the skies will we need to recognise the limits of weather cultivation in the Anthropocene. There will always remain a powerful “otherness” to the weather. Just as past weather was never fully tamed, whether by supplication to the gods or through the protective idea of a stable climate, neither will future weather be fully domesticated by humans’ cultivating powers. To a substantial degree it will always exceed attempts at its cultivation, just as does the soil, the ocean or indeed the human body.

Professor Hulme is a presenter of the 2018 HumanNature lecture series – a program of talks by leading scholars in the environmental humanities on the most pressing environmental challenges of our day. HumanNature is jointly funded and coordinated by the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, the University of Sydney and the Australian Museum. Above: Janet Laurence, Naturestruck, 2016, detail. Courtesy the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney “It’s proposed that we’re now in the Anthropocene era, defined as an age of global human impact on pretty well every part of the natural world. While geologists wrangle over how to define the Anthropocene and when, exactly, to backdate its commencement, the art world has embraced the Anthropocene proposal as a constructive framework for considering our predicament. Janet Laurence’s work sits squarely within this new and urgent consideration.” Rebecca Shanahan, Art Guide Australia, 2017

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 19

Night talks

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 19

Materials Conservation

Every skerrick of Eric Gabriel Wilder pieces together the story of Australia’s most complete pliosaur Sheldon Teare sits at a desk in a climate-controlled lab in the bowels of the Australian Museum. Spread out in front of him are chunks and shards of bones, some of which shimmer under fluorescent lights. When pieced together, they form one of the museum’s most famous and significant acquisitions: a 120-million-year-old pliosaur, nicknamed “Eric”. As a natural science conservator, it’s Teare’s job to conserve the valuable skeleton and its history for years to come. But it’s one that poses many challenges. When the 2.5m opalised skeleton of the small, short-necked pliosaur (Omoonasaurus demoscyllus) first arrived at the museum 30 years ago, Teare was not yet in residence. At that time, the museum had no specialist in the field and preparation processes were very different to today. The fossil’s traumatic discovery further complicates Teare’s task. While some fossils are painstakingly unearthed by trained archaeologists, Eric was hewn from Early Cretaceous rocks near Coober Pedy by an opal miner in 1987. Eric was later bought by a Sydney property developer, who commissioned the museum to prepare and articulate the skeleton. PhD student Paul Willis spent more than 450 hours turning hundreds of fragments into the most complete pliosaur skeleton ever found in Australia. Over 90% of the opalised skeleton was recovered and reassembled. Willis gave it the nickname “Eric”, after the Monty Python song Eric the Half-a-Bee. In 1992, Eric went on sale after its owner went into liquidation. A “Save Eric” appeal was launched by the ABC to keep him in Australia, prompting some 25,000 individuals, families, groups and companies to donate more than $500,000 for the museum to buy the skeleton and keep it in the public domain. Eric was glued to a board with silicon in preparation for a tour around NSW, to show off the skeleton to his many supporters. Since then, particles from the board have become attached to Eric, contaminating the marine reptile fossil. Teare is slowly removing Eric (and the particles) from the board and attempting to remove the silicon, as there is a risk it contains contaminants that could damage the fossil. He will then replace the silicon with a glue that won’t damage the precious opalised bones and can be easily removed in the future for scientific study of the skeleton. 20 |

Conservator Sheldon Teare undertakes the painstaking work of cleaning one of the AM’s most important and fragile fossils

This is all part of a day in the life of a museum conservator which, Teare says, is mostly “undoing less than ideal practices of recent history”. Natural science conservation is a relatively new field in Australia. Teare initially contemplated pursuing archaeology after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Otago but says that he “didn’t really want to be digging for a career”. “It was very competitive and in New Zealand the weather wasn’t conducive to being out and about in the mud.” Volunteering at the Otago Museum led to a job as a conservator. He later moved to Australia to obtain a Masters of Arts in Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne. He joined the AM in 2010 and is an enthusiastic advocate for natural science conservation. “We have millions of insects, millions of shells, millions of fossils in Australia and there are only two specialists in this country, so it’s an area where there’s a lot of work to be done.” As one of the highlights of the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum permanent exhibition in the Westpac Long Gallery, Eric will soon be put back on display. Teare might then take a stroll through the gallery, to see how his work is received. “It’s really lovely when you execute a really good treatment and you hear people say, ‘Look at that, it’s amazing!’” See Eric in 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 21

Materials Conservation

Conservator Sheldon Teare undertakes the painstaking work of cleaning one of the AM’s most important and fragile fossils

Accessibility

Access all areas How the Australian Museum is creating social change through inclusion, writes Gabriel Wilder Paul Nunnari likes to see the Australian Museum through the eyes of a child. The 45-year-old Paralympic silver medallist, wheelchair user and accessibility advocate believes that changing attitudes to accessibility and inclusion in society begins with designing spaces and programs for children with disability in mind. “It’s just so important because if they feel included, it sets them up to have the confidence that they can achieve anything, despite the possible barriers that might come their way in life.” Nunnari, who advised on the museum’s Accessibility and Inclusion Plan 2018–2021, which was launched earlier this year, has been in a wheelchair since a car accident at the age of 11. As well as competing in wheelchair athletics in three Paralympic Games and wowing television audiences with amazing aerial stunts on Australia’s Got Talent, Nunnari is a passionate advocate for accessibility and inclusion. He cites the museum’s 4.5m-wide Museum Walk pathway and Crystal Hall entrance, which opened in 2015, as a remarkable achievement in proving an accessible entry for staff, visitors and volunteers with disability. The Australian Museum is one of the country’s only major cultural institutions whose main entrance is accessible for people with disability. The award-winning Crystal Hall is also emblematic of something else Nunnari is passionate about: dignity. For many people with disabilities, accessibility often means being diverted to a goods lift or entering a building via a service entrance and having to navigate a crowded kitchen. They are getting access, but not much more. “You can have something that’s accessible, but is not necessarily dignified and that’s really important, particularly when it comes to children,” he says. Nunnari says there are plenty of options for institutions and organisations who want to do more than meet mandatory standards for accessibility – and they don’t always require big budgets or bricks and mortar. “I am personally most proud of the changes within the Australian Museum in regards to better awareness of disability across all staff. Each of the managers 22 |

Above: Visitors in the Westpac Long Gallery, which is equipped with accessible interactive tables and seating. Photograph by James Alcock Left: Paul Nunnari at the launch of the Accessibility and Inclusion Plan. Photograph by Steven Siewert

and their respective teams have come up with new ways to engage people with disabilities in their programs and events.” One of these programs is the museum’s partnership with Giant Steps, a school that specialises in the treatment and education of children with autism. The museum works with Giant Steps to minimise students’ anxiety over being in an unfamiliar space, including visits to the school by museum education staff to familiarise students with objects on display before their excursion. The museum has also introduced hearing loops in its theatre and performance spaces, and offers free tactile tours and audio descriptive tours on its new app. Other initiatives outlined in the Accessibility and Inclusion Plan will help people across the board. Nunnari notes that Australia’s first museum is – unsurprisingly, given the age of the heritage buildings – “a bit of a burrow” that can be difficult to navigate. Improvements in way-finding – such as smart poles that assist with directions, or signs in braille – could make a big difference to all visitors. Nunnari is optimistic about the future, having seen a big change in attitudes since he was injured two decades ago. Younger people have fewer preconceived notions of what people with disability can or can’t do, he says. “They just accept that a person with disability can do anything until told otherwise.” Find the AM’s Accessibility and Inclusion Plan online: australianmuseum.net.au/access-at-the-australian-museum

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 23

Accessibility

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 23

Photo gallery

First of their kind The Australian Museum’s type specimens

Clockwise from top left: Nobbi Dragon, Diporiphora nobbi Geoffrey J Witten, described 1972, collected Guyra, NSW; Gould’s Mouse, Pseudomys (Pseudomys) rawlinnae Troughton, described 1932, collected Rawlinna, Trans-Australian Railway, WA; Spotted-tailed Quoll, Dasyurus gracilius Ramsay, described 1888, collected Queensland; Stimson’s Python, Antaresia stimsoni L A Smith, described 1985

Type specimens are the namebearing specimens upon which scientific names are based. When a taxonomist describes a new species in a scientific paper, the specimens and the defining characteristics of the species are stated. Each type specimen is unique and irreplaceable. Type specimens are the gold standard – like the standard weights and measures used by countries to check all measurement equipment – and all research on species in the world depends on them. As the oldest museum in Australia, the Australian Museum collections house many thousands of type specimens; from worms, spiders and crabs through to fishes, birds, mammals and more. These specimens are the most important part of the Australian Museum’s biological collections and are an irreplaceable record of life on Earth. 24 |

Left: Superb Fairy-wren, Malurus cyaneus cyanochlamys (Malurus australis) North, described 1904, collected Meadowbank, NSW. O.9492 Above: Master’s Rosella, Platycercus mastersianus

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 25

Photo gallery

First of their kind The Australian Museum’s type specimens

Left: Superb Fairy-wren, Malurus cyaneus cyanochlamys (Malurus australis) North, described 1904, collected Meadowbank, NSW. O.9492 Above: Master’s Rosella, Platycercus mastersianus

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 25

Clockwise from left: Quipollornis koniberi J W Burton, described 1977, collected Chalk Mountain, Bugaldi, NSW, 1961; Hoverfly, Ortoprosopa multicolour (E W Ferguson, described 1926), collected Eccleston, NSW, 1921; Serranus magnificus, Holotype of Serranus magnificus, described 1882, collected Port Moresby; Steropodon galmani D & A Galman, described 1985, Lightning Ridge, NSW, 1984

Short-beaked Echidna, Echidna corealis Krefft, described 1872, collected Cape York, Queensland

Type definitions Holotype: This is a single type specimen upon which the name of a new species is based. Paratype: A specimen that is cited with the holotype in the original species description. Neotype: This specimen replaces the holotype (if it has been lost or destroyed). Cotypes/syntypes: This is an additional type specimen from the same group as the holotype, but is also used to describe the new species. In mineralogy, there can be a holotype and also more than one cotype. Hypotype: A specimen of a species that is not of the original type series but is known by published description, figure or citation.

26 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 27

Short-beaked Echidna, Echidna corealis Krefft, described 1872, collected Cape York, Queensland

26 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 27

Science

Left: Dr Sandy Ingleby unearths the skull of a Dense-beaked Whale (Mesoplodon densirostrisat) at a site owned by the University of Technology, February 2018 Right: The collection of the washed-up skull of a Bryde’s Whale (Balaenoptera edeni), Bermagui, NSW, November 1989. It was transported by the National Parks and Wildlife Service to nearby Lake Wapengo to be cleaned further by suspending it in the lake

Blood and bone Australian Museum Research Institute scientist Dr Sandy Ingleby describes the evolving art of cleaning a whale carcass In December 1849 the sailing vessel Thistle arrived in Neutral Bay, Sydney, towing the carcass of a Sperm Whale measuring over 9m long. Not one to miss such a unique opportunity, William S Wall, Curator of the Australian Museum, convinced the vessel’s master to give him the whale to prepare as a skeleton for the museum’s fledgling collection. Wall lamented on the difficulty in finding a person willing to encounter so “unpleasant,” and, as they imagined, “so unhealthy a task”. He eventually found two Portuguese sailors with experience in whaling to do the job. The carcass was taken to Pinchgut Island, or Mat-te-wan-ye, as it is known to local Aboriginal people, where it was covered in “lime and other preparations”. After two months, a clean skeleton with all the oil and “offensive odour” removed was recovered. 28 |

Today, the Australian Museum cetacean (the term used for whales, dolphins and porpoises) collection comprises more than 700 specimens from around 46 different species. It includes a diverse array of skulls, skeletons and other items such as whole animals or organs in spirit, dried baleen, teeth, ambergris samples and a growing frozen tissue collection. The collection is used by researchers worldwide to study many aspects of cetacean biology including the number of species and how to identify them, their distribution, evolutionary relationships, diet, reproductive biology, functional morphology, population structure and health status. These unique specimens are collected when animals strand on the beach or die at sea and are washed ashore. Such events provide a rare opportunity to learn more about the biology

of these elusive and fascinating mammals. For example, the museum’s cetacean collection has been used recently to study morphological variation between different Killer Whale populations and to estimate prey size of various toothed whale species. However, collection staff responsible for collecting, transporting, cleaning and storing these valuable specimens confront many of the same challenges faced by Wall more than 160 years ago. Not only are cetaceans generally big, but their bodies contain significant amounts of oil, which, if not effectively removed from the bones, will continue to ooze for many years causing a multitude of storage and pest problems.

skull of a 14m Bryde’s Whale, one of the largest single items in the AM’s mammal collection. The head and part skeleton were suspended in Lake Wapengo on the New South Wales south coast, with the cleaned skull and bones shipped to the museum several months later. Cetacean carcasses have been buried at various sites along the NSW coastline to be dug up later. The most recent exhumation was in March 2017, when three Dense-beaked Whale skeletons were exhumed from a 3m pit on Lord Howe Island. Unfortunately, burying is not an ideal solution as it often causes significant damage to the bones.

During the 1970s and ’80s, skeletons were prepared in a room in the basement known as the “maceration room”. The de-fleshed bones of small to medium-sized whales and dolphins were placed in a large stainless-steel vat containing water which was heated to remove the flesh. This method worked well but eventually the room was demolished and other ways to prepare skeletons had to be found.

Faced with a similar problem of how to prepare marine mammal bones, the South Australian Museum constructed a state-of-the-art “maceration” facility adjacent to the sewerage works near Adelaide. During the 1980s and ’90s, cetacean carcasses were stockpiled in the Australian Museum’s freezers before being driven across to Adelaide where, for a price, they were cleaned and the bones shipped back to Sydney. The Australian Museum’s walk-in freezer began to fill up with chunks of whale again when it was found that the chemicals used in this process were carcinogenic.

Flesh-eating dermestid beetles are another method used by the museum to clean skeletons but the bones of marine mammals tend to remain oily unless treated with chemicals such as ammonia. In 1989, aquatic organisms were used to clean the

In 2012, John Ososky, a preparator at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, published an article outlining the use of elephant dung and straw obtained from the National Zoological Park to“compost” whale skeletons. We decided to give

The Australian Museum has used a range of techniques to clean whale and dolphin skeletons over the years.

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 29

Science

The Australian Museum has used a range of techniques to clean whale and dolphin skeletons over the years.

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 29

this latest technique a go – but where to do the composting? Fortunately my mother owned a farm in the Hunter Valley. She had no objections to having a “whale garden” out the back and the neighbouring winery was just far enough away to be spared any noxious odours. Other relatives donated their surplus hay and the local hardware store provided a truckload of mushroom compost to act in place of elephant dung. And so, one hot summer’s day I found myself driving through the Mosman shopping centre after picking up a Dugong (another oily marine mammal) that had had died in shark nets, destined for the “Hunter Valley composting facility”. The car windows were kept down for fresh air, but at every red light a swarm of blowflies caught up to me. The Dugong was composted accordingly and its skeleton cleaned within a couple of months. An assortment of other specimens were prepared in this manner including a Sperm Whale jaw, several Beaked Whale skulls and parts of a grizzly bear, all with excellent results. The only glitch occurred one cold winter morning when a Red-bellied Black Snake, unable to resist the heat generated by the

heap, curled up amidst the whale skulls, giving me an awful fright when I went to check on them.

Digital

Just as it was all going so well, the farm was sold. Following the loss of the Hunter Valley site, the composting process is now up and running again, this time in a scenic patch of woodland on Sydney’s outskirts, owned by the University of Technology. The move has provided some useful upgrades – a cage sits over the compost pile to deter scavengers such as foxes and wild dogs, and temperature monitors placed inside the specimens monitor temperature and humidity. A steady flow of cetacean bodies have been cycled through the new facility. The most recent ones being the heads of a Risso’s Dolphin and a Dense-beaked Whale. At this point, the museum’s freezers are relatively cetacean free, but given the turbulent history of marine mammal preparation at the museum, it seems unlikely that they will stay that way for long.

Below: Australian Museum scientists Dr Mark Eldridge and Dr Anja Divljan recovering three Dense-beaked Whale, (Mesoplodon densirostris) skeletons on Lord Howe Island, March 2017

Behind the screens Digital interactives in the Westpac Long Gallery are opening doors to once-closed collections Museums have the responsibility of guarding many of the world’s most precious objects and specimens, ad infinitum. But as repositories of human knowledge, they must also be available for research and public interest. Now more than ever, technological innovations are making this possible. While many objects in the Australian Museum’s collection are perfect for display, such as those featured in the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum exhibition, there are those that aren’t. Fragile objects need careful handling and controlled conditions to protect them from disintegration. Some are too tiny to exhibit. Others are simply too important. In the Westpac Long Gallery, those obstacles have been overcome with the integration of interactive multimedia screens. Step inside and explore the collection like never before. Type specimens For the first time, view 100 of the museum’s most important specimens. For every species on the planet, there is the “first” specimen of its kind – the unique specimen upon which its name was based and

30 |

its description formed. Known as “type specimens”, they are an irreplaceable record of life on Earth. Scientific imaging Imaging plays an integral role in biological research. New methods of seeing and capturing the details of an organism are giving us powerful insights into the planet’s ecology. Discover SEM photography, X-ray, advanced scans and micro-computed tomography. Larval fishes They’re just millimetres long and the museum has more than a million of them in its collection. This touchscreen illustrates the wonders of larval fishes’ biology and the diversity of the museum’s globally significant collection through an interactive game. Field notebooks and journals Visitors can now turn the pages of precious artefacts otherwise kept away from public handling and exposure to light. Enjoy flipping through Sarah Stone’s 1770s natural history sketchbook, Edward Collet’s 1914 notebook of drawings made at Brungle Station and Frank Hurley’s Papua New Guinea photographs from the 1920s. EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 31

heap, curled up amidst the whale skulls, giving me an awful fright when I went to check on them.

Digital

Below: Australian Museum scientists Dr Mark Eldridge and Dr Anja Divljan recovering three Dense-beaked Whale, (Mesoplodon densirostris) skeletons on Lord Howe Island, March 2017

30 |

Department in focus

Out of their shells Louise Schwartzkoff meets the Australian Museum’s mollusc experts Left: Idiosepius hallami from Cudgen Creek, northern NSW Right: Scanning electron micrograph of the underside of the land snail Gyrocochlea hawkesburyana

In a lab on the ground floor of the Australian Museum Research Institute, malacologist Michael Shea is dissecting a snail the size of a Tic Tac. Working by hand on wax surfaces, using tiny scissors and fine needles to separate tissues and organs for scientific study and illustration, Shea and his colleagues are experts in the art of fine-scale dissection. “The people who do this are skilled artists,” says Dr Don Colgan, Principal Research Scientist of the Malacology Department. There are more than 6.5 million mollusc specimens in the Australian Museum’s collection: chitons, clams, mussels, snails, sea slugs, octopus, squid and more. Some of the specimens are frozen, others preserved in jars. There is also a large collection of dry shells. Overseeing this huge collection is Dr Mandy Reid, with the dedicated assistance of Alison Miller and Jenny Caiza. The museum’s mollusc specialists – the malacologists – work to expand knowledge of the world’s biodiversity and develop strategies for conservation. They also identify new species. Among the millions of specimens are those that have never been described, waiting for researchers to do the sleuthing required to distinguish them from those already known to science. Mandy Reid estimates the collection itself includes many thousands of undescribed species. Take Idiosepius hallami for instance, a species of pygmy squid recently described by Reid. At approximately 1.5cm and living among mangroves and seagrass, the squid have shiny eyes and bodies that Reid says, “look like little blobs of jelly” when scooped up in a net. When she came across an Idiosepius hallami specimen in the museum’s collection, it didn’t quite match the descriptions of species already known from Australia. She compared it with species from around the world and worked with Dr Jan Strugnell from James Cook University, in Queensland, to analyse their molecular sequences. The research required fresh squid, as the formalin used to preserve museum specimens ruins their DNA. Reid, sometimes assisted by her son as well as others from the museum, started scooping up squid in nets from the waters around Sydney, Lake Illawarra, Ulladulla and Bermagui, as in northern New South Wales.

32 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 33

Department in focus

32 |

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 33

Her initial observations proved correct, and Australia’s Idiosepiidae family expanded by one new species. She named it after her son and offsider, Hallam (now a lanky 17-year-old but once small and cute like his namesake). The project also led to a review of the family and the recognition of a new genus.

Profile

“It’s a bit of detective work,” she says. “And there’s a satisfaction in nutting it all out. It’s a privilege to contribute to the understanding of our fauna.” The work is fast and furious: there are around 100 species currently being described from recent field work by AM researchers Drs Isabel Hyman, Francesco Criscione and Anders Hallan. In addition to comparing DNA sequences and soft-part morphology, photography plays an important role. An electron microscope allows the museum to record the most intricate details of an object’s surface – useful in the study of small objects such as juvenile shells and the teeth of molluscs known as the radulae. “There’s a lot of fine-scale detail in the ornamentation of shells,” Colgan says. “So it’s a very useful technique for discriminating between species.” The museum’s malacologists travel far and wide in search of knowledge. Frank Köhler, who specialises in studying the phylogeny and evolution of land snails, was among the museum scientists on an expedition to Lord Howe Island last year. On top of Mount Gower, the island’s highest peak, he collected snail specimens from the Charopidae family – tiny creatures whose shells can be smaller than a human fingernail. Köhler also recently contributed to the most comprehensive assessment ever produced on the conservation status of the freshwater plant and animal life in the Indian Ocean islands. His focus for the assessment, published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, were freshwater molluscs – snails, mussels and clams. He found that 24% of them were threatened – meaning that one in four are likely to become extinct should current population trends persist. Top: Mandy Reid holding a small Common Sydney Octopus (Octopus tetricus) collected off Wollongong. “This octopus quickly jetted away from our research boat Baragula into the depths after it had posed for the photograph.” Above: Frank Köhler climbing Mount Gower, Lord Howe Island. “To study a snail species that can be found nowhere else in the world, one must climb for several hours.”

A malacologist’s work goes beyond identifying and studying molluscs. The museum’s scientists play an important role in preserving biodiversity. As part of his work on the Indian Ocean islands project, Köhler made recommendations to help stop the looming mass extinction of freshwater molluscs, including identifying biodiversity areas to be set aside for conservation. “While it is not too late to preserve most species, it won’t be possible without a dedicated and long-term conservation strategy,” he says. For malacologists, molluscs present a huge number of fascinating scientific questions. But Colgan says he also finds them “pretty inspiring”. He has a particular fondness for Onchidella – “a nondescript half-inch-long slug that lives in the most wave-exposed parts of intertidal rock platforms”. “It just hangs on through its own innate toughness,” he says.

34 |

Welcoming David Armstrong Peter Munro interviews the new President of the Australian Museum Trust David Armstrong was shocked from his sleep by a grunting, snorting sound thundering from the backyard. He jumped out of bed and ran into the dark, his torchlight soon spotting the culprit: a small, cuddly creature with a big brassy voice, lumbering along the back fence. A koala.

Those rude awakenings at his family’s holiday home in Hawks Nest, on the NSW mid-north coast, inspired Armstrong and his wife, Megan, to join the Australian Museum Foundation’s Treasures Circle by sponsoring the koala specimen in the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum exhibition.

“They have this awful noise when it’s mating season,” he says. “People describe it as being like a pig snorting but it’s horrendously loud. It will be dead still at 3 o’clock in the morning, then all of a sudden there will be this awful roar.”

The leading work of Australian Museum Research Institute scientists in sequencing the koala genome also drove their decision. “The role of the Australian Museum is enormous and varied,” he says. “It generates excitement and interest in science, culture and history. This place can tell the story of Australia, from pre-settlement to today.

Armstrong, the new President of the Australian Museum Trust, has a fondness for the iconic but rather raucous marsupial. He points out the koala on display in the Westpac Long Gallery while we take a tour of the museum soon after his appointment, in January. “It is uniquely Australian and pretty harmless. But gosh, it is loud.”

“We keep hearing that we need more people who are passionate about STEM, for the benefit of the country. Well, it sort of starts here, in a way.” On display in the Wild Planet gallery is another creature he often encounters on holidays. “The EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 35

Profile

34 |

dunes where we walk to the beach are filled with death adders,” he says. “I once came close to stepping on one lurking under a scrubby bush.” Armstrong, 59, is tall and precise, with a good head of grey hair and a calm manner. His first memory of the Australian Museum was visiting as a child to see the Egyptian mummies. His favourite objects are now the ghost net artworks from the Torres Strait and Cape York, shaped like a mud crab and honeycomb cod, in the First Australians Galleries. “The turning of abandoned fishing nets into objects of art is really special,” he says. He joined the Trust in 2014, after retiring as a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked for 33 years. He is a non-executive director of the National Australia Bank and a director of the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation, the Opera Australia Capital Fund and the George Institute for Global Health. Semi-retirement has given him the opportunity to devote more care and consideration to his current roles. “I now have more time to think and to read and to absorb,” he says. “In a full-time career the things that suffer are the things that would probably make you even better, which is to spend more time standing back and reflecting on situations, rather than having to respond to 100 bushfires burning at any one time.”

He describes his predecessor as Trust President, Catherine Livingston AO, as a “heart leader” and “mind leader”. “A heart leader is guided by compassion, while the mind leader will be highly analytical and strategic. You don’t often see people who are good at both.” He hopes to show similar traits during his time in the role, which coincides with the museum’s Master Plan to expand its public exhibition space. “The museum is starting to deliver on its potential in so many different ways. To contribute to that by being a voice of reason or calm feels like a logical extension of what I have done to date.” He likes to arrive early for Trust meetings and spend time walking around the museum “to get the vibe of the place”. “I love seeing the squealing kids and the excitement they have when something takes their attention,” he says. He and Megan have three adult children: Scott, 31, Hannah, 29, and Prue, 27. Their youngest child is a forensic scientist who did an internship at the museum’s Australian Centre for Wildlife Genomics, before joining the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. In his spare time, Armstrong loves golf (he plays off 10) and the opera – he and Megan try to see a show a month. “My father always had classical music playing in the house. There is a sense of serenity about classical music. And opera has the capacity through music and voice to really tear at the heartstrings.” What music do you play at home now, I ask. “Oh, a lot of Springsteen,” he says, smiling. Left: Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), collected in Woodburn, NSW, 1993. One of the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum, sponsored by David and Megan Armstrong

36 |

News Mandaang guwu (thank you), GADI Between March and June, the Australian Museum presented GADI, an exhibition which introduced visitors to the original custodians of the land on which the City of Sydney stands, the Gadigal people. GADI – named after the gadi (Xanthorrhoea grass tree), a vital element of the local ecosystem and Gadigal cultural practice – celebrated the rich and intricate history, culture and language of the Gadigal people, as well as their knowledge of botany, stonework and watercraft. Ensuring that First Nations communities have control of representation of their cultures in the museum, GADI provided a space for Gadigal stories to be told by Gadigal people, and was a collaboration between Gadigal Elders, Elders from neighbouring Sydney clans and museum staff. As part of this “living” exhibition, together they wove a four-metre nawi (canoe) that was acquired for the museum collection, passed on timeless knowledge to younger Aboriginal staff and ran workshops in which visitors learned to weave magura (fish) and bara (fish hooks) while listening to stories of Aboriginal Sydney. Nathan Sentance, project officer on GADI, says visitors were thrilled with their newfound understanding of a long-ignored history. “They commented on how much the exhibition taught them

Right: Objects conservator Brooke Randall with one of approximately 400 dry Herpetology specimens currently being rehoused

about the culture and language of the land they live on and noted the gap in knowledge about Aboriginal Sydney, even to lifelong Sydneysiders.” The exhibition serves as a strong reminder that the land the Australian Museum is built on always was and always will be Gadigal land.

Boxing days Objects conservator Brooke Randall is used to protracted, methodical projects that call for surgical levels of precision. Recently she spent three months rehousing (that’s setting in new hermetically sealed storage mounts to us mortals) close to 1000 deteriorating pyrite specimens. But even she has been taken aback by the meticulousness required by her new job – rehousing the Herpetology department’s dry collection. Imagine unpacking the skeleton of a python specimen acquired by the museum in the 1890s, creating a box just for it, moving its 400 vertebrae into this new cradle and securing each one with foam blocks and archival ribbon. There are approximately 200 specimens of snake, turtle,

crocodile, lizard and frog waiting for Brooke’s tender loving care. Once rehoused, the specimens will be safe from damage, packed more efficiently in the museum’s tight storage facility and fit for transport if desired. Completing two to three specimens a day, Randall will continue for as long as finances allow, to the delight of the scientists in Herpetology. Of course, work like this takes a certain kind of specialist. When asked how she is at wrapping Christmas presents, she replies without hesitation, “pretty damn good.”

Chicken and chips On sunny days, Belmore Park heaves with that singular Sydney anti-hero, the White Ibis. After seven years of quantifying city parks’ ibis populations and the availability of scrap foods, researchers from the Australian Museum, University of Wollongong and the Royal Botanic Garden found that the park at Central Station attracted ibis densities that were 10 times higher than the others, including Hyde Park and the Domain. But after rainfall, Belmore’s ibis numbers EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 37

36 |

Right: Objects conservator Brooke Randall with one of approximately 400 dry Herpetology specimens currently being rehoused

dropped dramatically. Here’s where the story takes an unlikely turn. One afternoon, Dr Richard Major, the museum’s Principal Research Scientist of Terrestrial Vertebrates, emptied his homebrew steriliser onto the lawn and observed a handful of earthworms wriggling out of the soil. Building on this discovery, Honours student Matt Chard doused the parks with this new-found skin irritant. “The carboy cleaner was the perfect brew”, said Chard. “It demonstrated that worms were 80% more abundant after rain, and we found six times as many in the Domain as in Belmore Park”. It seems that having already decimated Belmore’s worm population, after rain ibis flock to the city’s other parks to pig out on this healthy alternative. It seems “Bin Chickens” eat more than chips after all.

Exhibitions on the road For several months last year, four Cornell University entomology undergraduates scoured the woods and fields of Ithaca, as well as locations in Florida, Louisiana and Arizona, for spiders. By the end of their work they had captured 300 diverse specimens that will be displayed in Spiders: Life & Death, premiering at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto from 16 June to 6 January 2019 before embarking on a North American tour. Spiders – an exhibition developed and toured by the Australian Museum and Questacon: The National Science and Technology Centre – continues its Australian tour. Having already taken in Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, it will open at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery on 30 June and run until 28 October. 38 |

Meanwhile, the Australian Museum-produced blockbuster Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family (which now includes four real dinosaur fossils on loan from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh) continues to tour, exhibiting at its fourth North American venue, Discovery Place in Charlotte, from 26 May to 3 September. After making audiences swoon in Newcastle this year, Transformations: Art of the Scott Sisters will tour to Hurstville from 4 August to 14 October. And Supercroc is currently touring regionally across Stockland shopping centres.

Skeleton in the closet A large fossil pelvis and seven attached vertebrae were discovered decades ago hanging in an old locker in the Australian Museum. Nothing is known about these bones except that they belong to a moa, a large, extinct flightless bird that was unique to New Zealand. There were nine species of moa, ranging in weight from 12kg–250kg. What species of moa did these bones come from? Our researchers did a bit of detective work to find

out. They began by studying the morphology of the mysterious fossil and compared it with other moa specimens in the museum’s collection. This allowed them to narrow down the fossil’s identity to one of the three species in the moa genus Pachyornis. Based on the dark sediment that was stuck to the fossil, they could tell that the moa came from a swampy environment. They used X-ray diffraction to find out what minerals were present in the sediment. This revealed the presence of the mineral mica, which is typical of moa fossil sites in New Zealand’s South Island. Together, all of these pieces of evidence suggest that the fossil is from a Heavy-footed Moa (Pachyornis elephantopus). This was one of the largest species of moa, weighing up to 163 kg, and went extinct about 500600 years ago. After hanging in a locker for many years, the moa fossil has now found a new home in the museum’s Palaeontology collection.

Below: South Island Giant Moa, Dinornis robustus (foreground) and Pachyornis elephantopus (background). Public domain

Thank you The Australian Museum Foundation would like to acknowledge the support of our donors 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. 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 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 Peter & Judy Gregg Chris & Gina Grubb The Hartzer/Trevor-Jones Family Dr Janice Hirshorn & Dr George Jacobs 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 The Macquarie Group Foundation Memocorp Australia Pty Ltd The Moore Family 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

Billie Rose & Warwick Evans Professor Jan Scott, Professor Ian Hickie & Paul Connor Albert Y Wong AM & Sophie Wong Fengjun Zhu 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 Lesli Berger Bill & Annette Blinco The Graham & Charlene Bradley Endowment Philip Cornwell Susan Foster Peter Homel Dr Rebecca Johnson Bill Manos Justice Jane Mathews AO Helen McCombie Justice Robert McDougall Alice Oppen OAM John Pearson John & Christina Stitt Vonwiller Foundation Tony White AM & Doffy White Supporters Anonymous Antoinette Albert James & Belinda Allen Rae & David Allen Michelle Atkinson Lauren Atmore Dinah Beeston Marco Belgiorno-Zegna AM Christine Bishop Natalia Bradshaw Sir Ron Brierley Kerin Brown Elizabeth Cameron Rosemary Campbell Chikako Carter Michael & Chrissie Crowley Trevor Danos AM Hugh Dixson Margaret & Peter Donovan Ronald & Suellen Enestrom

Belinda Gibson Jeffery & Christine Goss Greg & Beth Hammond Ronnie Harding Derek Heath Adrianne Johnson Karina Kelly Warwick Klabe Gilles Kryger Eugenia Langley John Leece AM Howard Lewis A J Loewenthal Ann Macintosh Trust Ross McNair & Robin Richardson Ros Madden Tony & Fran Meagher Nick & Caroline Minogue Lily W Müng Endowment David Norman Bruce Norton Anne Pickles Judy Ranka David Robb Frank & Judith Robertson Jane & Neville Rowden Alison Scott Cassandra Seaton Alan & Yvonne Sebesfi David & Daniela Shannon Dr Fiona Sim Fiona Sinclair Diana Southwell-Keely Jeremy Spinak Jacinta Spurrett Ross Steele AM Christopher Still Tom Story Tehmi Sukhla Anne Sullivan Vera Vargassoff Francis Walsh Wavish Family Foundation Michael & Mary Whelan Trust Stephen Wilson Caitlin Woods Michel Zwecker 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

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 Strategic Partner Destination NSW Government Partner Create NSW Major Partners 3M 303MullenLowe IBM Stockland Partners ANSTO Bunnings Group Limited 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 Fyna Foods Australia Guardian Global Systems IAS Fine Arts Logistics Kent Street Studio Oatley Fine Wine Merchants Valiant Events

Eureka Prize Sponsors 3M ANSTO Australian Infectious Diseases Gifts to AM Collections Research Centre Celestino Steven & Janine Avery CSIRO Ursula Burgoyne Defence Science & Technology Sam & Louise Dawson Department of Industry, Rod & Robyn Dent in honour of Pat Dent & the Wanindilyaugwa Innovation and Science Johnson & Johnson tribe Macquarie University Charles M Ellias NSW Office of Environment & The late Paul L Fischer Heritage John L Gordon University of Sydney Robin Guthrie University of Technology Sydney Mark Hanlon UNSW J Holliday

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 39

Below: South Island Giant Moa, Dinornis robustus (foreground) and Pachyornis elephantopus (background). Public domain

EXPLORE Winter 2018 | 39

Be co m e

an e di ur ar fut Gu r A ou of

Guardians enjoy an exciting program of events including: • exhibition openings • private viewings of exhibitions

• behind-the-scenes tours of collections and laboratories • tailored “insider briefings” with Australian Museum experts and visiting VIP guests • plus other special events! As a Guardian, your tax-deductible donation will help secure the Australian Museum’s future. For further information: T 02 9320 6216 E development@austmus.gov.au W australianmuseum.net.au/foundation

40 |