Explore Magazine - Winter 2017

AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE WINTER 2017

Revealing our treasures in the Westpac Long Gallery

FROM THE DIRECTOR Kim McKay AO, Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE and Dr Rebecca Johnson during celebrations for the AM’s 190th anniversary

CONTENTS 4

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9

News

Connecting to culture

Making old markings new

10

13

14

Adventure southwest

Murder in the museum

On the biosecurity frontline

17

18

24

The (other) Lord Howe insect

Facelift for the future

200 treasures

27

28

30

Totem swap

Hi-tech revival

Real or fake?

31

32

34

Unsung women

Camera trapping

Museum memories

EXPLORE ISSN 1833-752X Winter 2017

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@melindaham.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

Cover: Bird of Paradise (Great Promerops) from John Gould’s Birds of New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan islands, including many new species recently discovered in Australia.

Our 190th anniversary celebrations kicked off in a spectacular way in February with a visit to the Australian Museum by the legendary naturalist, Sir David Attenborough.

Sir David joined us at a 190th anniversary luncheon where he was awarded Lifetime Patron of the Australian Museum, and also had a new genus of Tasmanian semi-snail named after him, Attenborougharion rubicundus.

Since then, we’ve opened a stunning new exhibition of works from 19th century natural history artists, sisters Helena and Harriet Scott – who worked with the AM in the 1860s and ’70s – and are selling prints of their masterful butterfly and moth drawings through The Store by Fairfax. We’ve also taken a life-size T. rex model on the road to selected Stockland shopping centres across New South Wales and undertaken a comprehensive scientific survey of Lord Howe Island involving more than 20 Australian Museum Research Institute scientists.

The second half of 2017 promises to be just as exciting, especially as we prepare to open the Westpac Long Gallery in October, featuring 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum.

This new exhibition will see the historic Long Gallery, Australia’s first museum gallery, fully restored while providing the very best in 21st century museum experiences. The new exhibition showcases 100 of the most significant specimens and cultural objects from the AM’s 18 million-strong collection, while celebrating the triumphs of a further 100 treasured people – legendary Australians whose unique achievements will be highlighted through interactive content.

200 Treasures of the Australian Museum and the Westpac Long Gallery comprise our legacy gift to the Australian people for our 190th anniversary.

Achieving this landmark transformation in our milestone year is possible thanks to the support and generosity of the New South Wales Government, our partners Westpac and the Australian Museum Foundation Treasures Circle donors.

It takes a “family” to run a museum – and I’d like to extend my personal thanks to all current and former members of the extended AM family – staff, Trustees, AM Foundation and Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation, donors, Members and visitors – for all they’ve done for Australia’s first museum over the past 190 years. Here’s to the next decade of achievement.

Kim McKay AO Director and CEO

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NEWS

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T. rex road trip The Australian Museum and Stockland have teamed up to take a life-size Tyrannosaurus rex model on a road trip this year.

The 11-metre-long dinosaur model will visit Stockland shopping centres in greater Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and the mid-north coast.

Shoppers in centres such as Forster, Glendale and Shellharbour will see the world’s first anatomically correct model of a T. rex. – with an up-close look at its vital organs, including a giant heart. Visitors can also enter a competition to name the dinosaur and win a “dino dig” holiday to Alberta, Canada.

Originally built for the National Geographic documentary T. rex Autopsy, the dinosaur model was donated by National Geographic to the AM last year. It is so large that in its complete form it’s unable to fit through the AM’s doors. However, the AM’s expert exhibitions team are working on a plan to have the model installed at the museum for the second annual Dinosaur Festival in October.

Right: The new mobile app interface

New AM app Children with low vision will now get more out of a visit to the Dinosaurs gallery at the Australian Museum thanks to a new version of the AM mobile app.

As visitors move around the gallery, iBeacon technology triggers descriptions about each nearby dinosaur and the storyteller encourages young listeners to reach out and touch the model.

The app – developed in consultation with Vision Australia – continues to pioneer development of other location-based museum highlights. It features new content for exhibitions including the Pacific Spirit and Minerals: Featuring the Albert Chapman Collection, with fast facts and insights into the AM collections on display.

The app is multilingual, with this new release containing information in Mandarin for our Chinese visitors. Download the new AM app from the App Store.

Digging for whale bones

“Dinosaurs are a perennial favourite of museum audiences,” said Kim McKay AO, Director and CEO of the AM, “so we’re excited to work with Stockland to give people outside Sydney the chance to see this prehistoric beast dating from 85 to 65 million years ago.”

This photo shows part of one of three Blainville’s Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) skeletons excavated during the recent expedition to Lord Howe Island (see page 17). Back in August 2011, onlookers noticed numerous Galapagos whaler sharks attacking these three whales on a fringing reef of Lord Howe Island. Scientists later towed the dead whales to shore, collected tissue samples and then buried them.

Sir David Attenborough

A future path

Global treasure Sir David Attenborough received the Australian Museum’s highest honour of Lifetime Patron and had a new genus named after him at a special event marking the start of the AM’s 190th anniversary year.

Sir David’s award recognised his lifetime work in natural science and conservation. The AM also named a newly discovered genus after the living legend, the Attenborougharion rubicundus – a large semi-snail, 35-45 millimetres long, found only in Tasmania.

In presenting the honour, Catherine Livingstone AO, Australian Museum Trust President, said that Sir David’s contribution to generating awareness of the natural world was unprecedented.

“There is no one else – you have no peer,” she said. “Australia and the international community have benefited from your curiosity, knowledge and unending commitment to the natural world to bring us the stories, and make us aware of the challenges we face, in a way that no one else has been able to do.”

Kim McKay AO, AM’s Director and CEO, said that Sir David’s enduring support of the museum was invaluable.

“He has inspired our scientists and visitors alike, dating back to his earliest visits hosting lectures for AM Members in the 1980s, to visits to the AM’s collection of ancient fish fossils in Canowindra, to more recent trips to the AM’s Lizard Island Research Station as part of filming for his recent Great Barrier Reef documentary series,” she said.

Last year, the Australian Museum launched its master plan for the future. Named barrabuwari muru – meaning “future path” in Sydney’s Indigenous language – the plan provides a framework for the continued growth of Australia’s first museum into its third century.

Turning the AM “inside out”, barrabuwari muru features plans to liberate more of the AM’s worldclass collections from behind-the-scenes and open more of its historic site to visitors. The new museum will include a Grand Hall more than 70 metres long, a purpose-built touring exhibition gallery and an Indigenous and Pacific cultural centre to celebrate indigenous knowledge, science and research at the highest level.

Once the NSW Government considers the master plan, in the next stage the AM will hold an international architecture competition for a new building design.

Learn more and have your say.

Above: Sir David Attenborough and the Attenborougharion rubicundus Above: A young dinosaur fan enjoys the T. rex display at Shellharbour

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Right: Concept drawing of the masterplan Indigenous and Pacific cultural centre

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 5

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

BY MELINDA HAM EDITOR

An Australian Museum outreach program is connecting marginalised young people across Sydney with their cultural heritage.

The classroom is brightly lit with a colourful alphabet encircling the top of the walls. Hundreds of books line the shelves. Plastic chairs surround a long table where a group of teenage boys sit, intently examining cultural artefacts from the Australian Museum, admiring the craftsmanship – and warrior nature – of their ancestors.

This could be a classroom anywhere in Australia, except when you glance out of the window and notice wide spirals of razor wire curled on every ledge, wall, rooftop and scalable surface. This is the Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre in Western Sydney and these teenagers are locked in here, through three sets of steel doors.

“The reason we’re doing this outreach is to encourage young people to learn more about their cultural heritage, to learn more about themselves, improve their sense of self and make better life choices,” says Thelma Thomas, the AM’s Youth Worker for Cultural Collections and Community Engagement.

“We tell them: ‘We are talking to you. You are important. These things are valuable and fashioned by your ancestors. Other people may say you are nothing, but we are saying there is strength in you. There is potential in you.’”

The AM’s Pacific Youth Reconnection Project, launched in 2012, was the brainchild of Dion Pieta, the then Manager of Cultural Collections, who established a partnership with the New South Wales Department of Juvenile Justice, Fairfield Office. Initially, “at-risk” young people from Pacific communities visited the AM and got hands-on access to artefacts from one of the world’s most significant Pacific cultural collections.

Then, with an injection of funds in 2012 from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation and the Australian Museum Foundation, the project hired Thomas, a Fijian woman, who came to the AM with 15 years of similar social work and arts outreach experience. She designed and coordinated the project rolling out the outreach components to Western Sydney.

Thomas and her colleague Logan Metcalfe, an AM Collections Officer, have now expanded the project to include Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre, Reiby Juvenile Justice Centre near Campbelltown and Kariong Correctional Centre near Gosford.

Thomas also regularly visits community centres with projects for marginalised young people, such as the Mt Druitt Street University, participating in community events and leading workshops where young people learn to weave baskets, make music or paint.

“These objects and activities provide a glimpse into the AM’s Pacific Collection where we have 60,000 objects. They give us insights into traditional designs, materials and technologies,” says Metcalfe, a Maori man.

Drawing on his own experience, he explains the cultural disconnection many young people go through: “They may have migrated here as teenagers from the Pacific or New Zealand, or they are first-generation Australians.

They are trying to figure out where they fit in, what their cultural identity is when they see so little of it represented in the media.”

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CONNECTING TO CULTURE

Thelma Thomas behind the scenes at the AM

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BY PENELOPE RIGGS PROJECT MANAGER, MAKING OLD MARKINGS NEW

From left to right: Adele Chapman-Burgess, Penelope Riggs, Lorrayne Riggs, Rod McIntosh Below: Detail of the markings on a boomerang from New England.

Registered 1945

Left: Thelma Thomas, Logan Metcalfe and Melinda Ham at the Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre Below: Fan from Fiji

‘Journey on my brother ... my brother stand strong.’

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Visiting the Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre, Metcalfe gives the young men a traditional official welcome in the Maori language, showing respect to their elders, and the first spark appears in the young men’s eyes as they hear the words. “Nga mihi nui kia koutou, nga uri o matou tupuna e moeana ana i te poho o Aoteroa.

Extensive greetings to you, O descendants of our ancestors who rest in the bosom of Aotearoa (New Zealand).”

He then talks about Waitangi Day; the annual celebration on 6 February that commemorates the treaty signed between indigenous chiefs or rangatira and the British Crown. The treaty paved the way for modern-day relationships between Maoris and Europeans, as well as all people who came afterwards.

Metcalfe and Thomas then pick up various taonga (treasures) from the table, that date from the late 1800s, start to talk about them and pass them to the young men to examine. One is a fly whisk, or fue (pronounced foo-ae), that the AM acquired in Fiji but is an iconic piece from Samoan culture and denotes leadership.

The young men begin to relax and playfully swat each other with the whisk, asking questions of the AM staff.

They particularly like the roof ornament called tekoteko – a solid, powerful wooden sculpture of an ancestor – acquired in New Zealand from Te Puia Maori Art Centre, Rotorua.

But their favourite item seems to be the Maori wahaika kotiate (pronounced waahaa eekaa kotiaateah) an ornately carved wooden club with a sloping handle.

“It’s designed like this, like a jawbone, so that your hand doesn’t get wet with blood when you strike someone, and you can keep on fighting and not lose it (the weapon),” Metcalfe says.

As the session draws to an end, Metcalfe blows into a conch shell used to warn villagers of attack, also used at prayer and feasts. Then Thomas unexpectedly breaks into rap poetry; talking about the importance of the artefacts and thanking the young men, each by name for taking part. “Journey on my brother journey on, journey on my brother stand strong,” she raps.

The young men applaud as she finishes, smiling broadly. They ask when Thomas and Metcalfe will visit again, requesting they bring some traditional food next time, another cultural experience many of them clearly miss when they are inside.

Making old markings new It was an emotional, personal and spiritual moment no one will forget in a hurry; in the private storage area of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Collection at the Australian Museum, three Anaiwan and Kamilaroi artists wore white gloves as they examined a boomerang. It was covered in line work and etching marks, carved by their ancestors from NSW’s northwest and New England regions.

“What sticks in my mind is that these are our songlines,” says Lorrayne Riggs, one of the artists from Ashford, who combines photography, weaving and writing in her work. “There are messages in every piece, be it on the rocks or in the museum. Our ancestors left their marks for us like a stamped time mark – but how did they know we would see it, and how did they think we would interpret their marks?”

Two other artists from Arts North West accompanied Riggs: Rod McIntosh from Tenterfield and Adele Chapman-Burgess from Glen Innes, who both work with acrylic and ink on canvas. The trio saw a wealth of cultural objects including shields, baskets and fishing nets.

The AM visit was part of Making Old Markings New, a professional skills development project

funded by the NSW 2016 Aboriginal Regional Arts Fund. The project enables artists to rediscover traditional mark-making techniques, linking them to their cultural heritage and focusing on their cultural lineage.

A few weeks earlier, traditional Custodians and Elders led the artists to rock art sites to see traditional mark-making symbols and techniques in situ. They ensured the group kept cultural protocols, such as men’s business and women’s business.

The sites included Wattle Ridge near Guyra, Mount Yarrowyck, Goonoowigall and Boundary Rock, Moonbi. Dr June Ross, an archaeologist from the University of New England, accompanied them.

“To see various places, sites and objects that many people of our nations may not see is such an honour,” says McIntosh. “So far, for me, this project has been inspiring and eye-opening.”

Making Old Markings New will culminate in a schools’ e-resource available on the Arts North West website, and an exhibition in Armidale from JulySeptember 2017 will assist community artists apply this knowledge to their arts and cultural practice.

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 9

EXPEDITION

ADVENTURE SOUTHWEST Below: RV Braveheart docked at Rapa Island on the Southern French Polynesia Expedition, 2014

The Australian Museum’s next expedition is to remote islands and reefs surrounding Fiji, Tonga, New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

‘The boat is a fantastic platform for research work but is not of the glamorous cruise ship variety …’

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On a voyage of discovery beginning in July, AM scientists will travel to isolated southwest Pacific islands, including places few scientists have ever ventured before, to document marine fauna.

Over about seven weeks, the AM team, accompanied by colleagues from the Auckland Museum and National Museum of New Zealand, will scuba dive in the area gathering samples.

The AM experts include the collection managers for marine invertebrates (Steve Keable), fish (Mark McGrouther, Sally Reader) and malacology (Mandy Reid). Malacology is the study of molluscs, including cephalopods such as squid, octopus and cuttlefishes, and others such as snails, slugs and clams. The AM’s invertebrate collection includes crustaceans, jellyfish, sea stars and sea cucumbers, worms and sponges.

“Our collections contain comparatively few specimens from sites in the southwest Pacific region,” Keable says. “We’ve selected locations in that area with high potential to provide new information on distribution patterns. It’s exciting to be involved.”

The team has previously collaborated with their counterparts from New Zealand on a number of expeditions. Together in 2011, they surveyed the waters of the Kermadec Islands (between New Zealand and Tonga), southern French Polynesia in 2014 and Tonga and Niue in 2015.

On this voyage (funded by AMRI – the Australian Museum Research Institute – and the AM Foundation), the scientists aim to build on previous work recording the area’s biodiversity and

determining the influence of oceanic currents on the biological connectivity across the South Pacific.

“We also hope to gain greater understanding of the evolutionary relationships between the fauna from these islands and the wider Pacific region, including eastern Australia,” Reid says.

For nearly two months, the Braveheart, a 39 metre ship will be their home. At any one time, up to 17 Australian, New Zealand and other international scientists will live on board, with a crew of five, one of whom doubles as a cook.

So what is a typical day like on one of these expeditions?

Reid summarises the morning routine: “We wake up at dawn to the sound of the hydraulics of the boat’s crane lifting inflatable boats from storage on top of the ship into the water for use during the day to go out to the reef. We eat a hearty breakfast, that is followed by a quick briefing from the expedition leader and the vessel’s skipper.”

The scientists prepare their dive gear and sampling equipment and are usually in the water before 8am for the day’s first scuba dive. Their samples include fishes and the substrates that invertebrates inhabit, such as algae, sediment or rubble. Some of the substrates are gathered using a device, hooked up to a scuba tank, that acts like a small underwater vacuum.

After the dive, they return to the Braveheart to process their samples. They first identify invertebrates into broader groups such as snails and crabs, then photograph and preserve them in alcohol or formalin for storage. They separate the EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 11

PROFILE

Tanya Goldberg, Creative Producer

smaller invertebrates from the substrates, often by washing or sieving. They also take subsamples for genetic analysis. Everything needs labelling and documentation.

Scientists can identify many fish to genus or species on board, but need to wait until their return to the museum to access literature, microscopes and experts to classify the many invertebrates.

“It’s essential to photograph as much of the material as possible because many creatures such as fishes can be red with orange stripes, for example, and once you preserve them they lose their colours and all turn brown. The colour pattern can be important for identification,” McGrouther says, while Reid adds that colourful slugs can look like pieces of used chewing gum when preserved.

After a midday lunch, the team heads out for another dive, returning for more processing and then dinner around 6pm. The expedition leader and skipper also brief the team about plans for the next day and predicted weather conditions.

“After that, processing samples can continue well into the night,” says Keable. “We might do further sampling, such as using a light to attract invertebrates and fishes. We also need to fill out our dive logs and write up a summary of all samples collected that day. We’re rarely in bed before 11pm, while the ship’s crew work shifts around the clock.”

Not every day involves collecting. Sometimes it takes hours or days to travel between sites. “The boat is a fantastic platform for research work but is not of the glamorous cruise ship variety, and its size means that we bounce about a lot – I admit I’ve lost 12 |

MURDER in the museum

my lunch a few times,” McGrouther adds.

Once the team returns to the AM, it can take months to identify all the samples, integrate them into the museum collection, make them available to interested colleagues around the world and learn of any new discoveries.

So far from discoveries made in the 2011 expedition to the Kermadecs, AM scientists have contributed to more than 20 scientific papers and produced over 300 new marine species distribution records for the area.

Top: Mandy Reid, Sally Reader and Mark McGouther processing samples on the deck of the Braveheart Above: Collecting fishes at Mototiri Rocks. All photographs by Ian Skipworth © Auckland Museum

Waves of excited chatter ripple through the crowd in the Australian Museum atrium as a function honouring a visiting delegation of esteemed French arachnologists begins.

The lead scientist, an eminent Parisian researcher, walks up to the stage. He is about to announce a groundbreaking discovery that could change the face of science. “Mesdames et messieurs…” he begins, when suddenly, a thundering clap reverberates against the sandstone walls of Australia’s oldest museum.

The scientist collapses onto the stage as the crowd gasps as one. Security guards jump into action, locking the AM’s doors. The suspect is among us, there’s no time to waste. A group of guests gather quickly, determined to uncover the killer, their motive and the international intrigue behind the AM’s very first murder.

Blending reality and fiction, this scenario is the kind of thing that could happen at “Murder at the Museum”, an event developed with the Alliance Française and the brainchild of Tanya Goldberg, a Creative Producer focusing on adult audiences.

“Playful, immersive and fully interactive, this scripted experience offers a different way for audiences to engage with the collection,” says Goldberg, who joins AM after an acclaimed career in theatre.

BY MATT RAVIER MANAGER PROGRAMMING

Most recently, she was the resident director of Matilda the Musical, winner of a record 13 Helpmann awards. Her unscripted show The Blind Date Project played to packed theatres at the Sydney Festival as well as in Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, New York and Los Angeles.

Over her career, Goldberg has directed new and classic plays for a range of Australian companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Griffin Theatre Company and Ensemble Theatre.

“Theatre-making requires the combination of grand artistic vision with detailed project management in the service of telling engaging stories,” she says. “Without a vision, you’re heading nowhere. But the devil is always in the detail. It’s the perfect training for my work as a creative producer at the AM.” Goldberg is part of a team developing new audiences and deepening visitor engagement, by bringing the AM to life with music, live performance and visual arts.

“There are as many stories to tell at the AM as there are items in the collection, not to mention a wealth of talent in our staff and scientists,” she says.

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SCIENCE

Across Southeast Asia, Australian Museum scientists are spreading knowledge about pests.

BY MELINDA HAM EDITOR

On the

‘It’s an entomologist’s paradise.’

BIOSECURITY FRONTLINE

Above: Stomoxys calcitrans, the stable fly, which breeds in dung and is a pest around stables.

Note the hard proboscis which rasps the skin and causes bleeding. The fly then laps up the blood Left: Male fruit flies in Thailand are attracted to baits with “cue lure”, a chemical that mimics the female scent

At a port in Sydney, a Border Force inspector opens a container of carved wooden furniture imported from Asia. A telltale trail of sawdust leads him to adult pests and larvae in the legs of a chair. He orders the whole container be sprayed with pesticide, and may later decide the entire shipment must be destroyed. The importer stands to lose tens of thousands of dollars.

This scenario is repeated every day across Australia; introduced pests threaten agriculture industry and exports, says Cameron Slatyer, AM’s Branch Manager, Life and Geosciences.

AM’s expertise in invertebrate taxonomy and long history working with Australian Border Force, led the Australian government to invite AM scientists to join an initiative to fight these threats. Working with other institutions, they are providing biosecurity training workshops across the Southeast Asian region.

“These workshops have a three-pronged attack,” says Slatyer. “We are trying to improve global capacity to identify pests and develop base-level knowledge that is fundamental to the planet’s future. We are assisting ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries to identify and combat their own pests and build collection capacity across the region and also protect Australian agriculture.”

A Paradise With its nearly impenetrable geography spanning rainforest-covered mountains, Papua New Guinea holds about five per cent of the world’s biodiversity, a wealth of species found nowhere else. “It’s an entomologist’s paradise,” says Professor Gerry Cassis of the University of New South Wales.

Cassis led a team of scientists that worked with a wide range of public service agencies in PNG, particularly the National Agricultural Research Institute.

Over the past three years, Cassis collaborated with AM entomologist Chris Reid, training agricultural researchers, extension officers and quarantine technicians to identify insect pests. Reid and Cassis filled a knowledge gap; holding training workshops, involving more than 100 participants across the country, in Lae, Port Morseby, Madang and New Britain.

“We started at the bottom, assuming no prior knowledge, and for a week taught participants how to collect, curate and identify insect species,” Cassis says. “We provided microscopes and other consumables to upgrade their infrastructure, and helped bring the PNG National Agricultural Insect Collection back to life. Their response was overwhelming – they loved it. When we finished the workshop in East New Britain, the participants sang us a hymn of thanks.”

Agriculture is the lifeblood of PNG as 80 per cent of people depend on subsistence farming, growing root crops such as sweet potato, taro, cassava and bananas, as well as cash crops such as coffee, cocoa and palm oil – all of which are subject to established and emerging pests.

“Insects can be a huge problem and wipe out a farmer’s whole crop – their food and income,” Cassis says. “But we found a big gap: farmers commonly turn EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 15

up with a sample of a pest and the authorities can’t identify it and so can’t effectively manage it. We saw an opportunity to help.”

After the end of this program – funded by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – Cassis and Reid hope to roll it out to other Pacific nations. They are also encouraging their PNG colleagues to expand their entomological collections, deepen their research and publish scientific papers.

Thai flies At the same time as this PNG initiative, high in the mountains of Thailand near Chiang Mai, Dr Dan Bickel, AM’s Principal Research Scientist in the Entomology Collection, was leading another workshop.

In the Queen Sirikit Botanic Gardens, Bickel taught participants in a workshop last year to identify Diptera (true or two-winged flies), which are agricultural pests, and also discussed their life history and ecological strategies.

Most of the participants work on the biosecurity frontline and included technicians and quarantine entomologists from all the ASEAN countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The group also learned basic collection techniques using traps and nets, and methods to

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preserve the flies to create reference databases in their respective countries. “It was an ideal place to hold it because within a few minutes we were outside in the rainforest catching samples,” he adds.

“Everyone was very enthusiastic.”

The workshop was one of many sponsored by the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, as part of their technical capacitybuilding programs for ASEAN countries to combat agricultural and veterinary pests.

“We have many invasive species such as fruit flies and fire ants that are already causing problems,” Bickel says. “And the list goes on.” He hopes to expand these workshops to other ASEAN countries over the next year and has already got interest from South Korea.

Back at the AM, Slatyer explains the benefit of these programs to the AM. “Really, this is how we hope the AM will work in future. Our scientists like Chris and Dan are going out in the region and working with researchers, farmers and government officials in Australia and Asia and they are also bringing new samples back to the AM and expanding our knowledge of new species,” he says.

Below: Dr Dan Bickel with workshop participants at the Queen Sirikit Botanic Gardens near Chiang Mai, Thailand

BY DR CHRIS REID RESEARCH SCIENTIST, ENTOMOLOGY COLLECTION

The (other) Lord Howe insect The mysterious Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis) has already grabbed a lot of attention on this remote and rocky isle. But waiting in the wings was another significant entomological discovery: meet Oricopis isulana, a wood-boring longhorn beetle.

Earlier this year, while undertaking a comprehensive survey of native and introduced fauna on Lord Howe Island, Australian Museum scientist Dr Frank Köhler accidentally stumbled on an unexpected find – a species of beetle not seen in nearly 140 years.

Oricopis insulana is extremely rare. A woodboring longhorn beetle that entomologists previously thought extinct, it was originally described by an AM scientist in 1890 from a single specimen collected on Lord Howe Island the previous decade.

That holotype (a single specimen which is the basis for the description and name of a new species) remained in the AM’s entomology collection as the only evidence the species ever existed – until now.

Köhler, who is a malacologist (someone who studies molluscs – including snails, slugs, octopus and squid) was searching for snail specimens when he spotted the large beetle in Lord Howe’s popular bushwalking destination, Stevens Reserve.

Oricopis insulana is two centimetres long, sandy brown in colour with three short spines on its sides

behind its head. These structures help disguise it as a broken twig. With Köhler’s discovery, the beetle has now crawled its way off the “possibly extinct” list, although Oricopis insulana seems to be a genuinely “rare” species with an adult that is either short-lived or difficult to find.

This discovery was one of more than 2,500 beetle specimens that AM scientists collected in the first two weeks of a major expedition to Lord Howe Island in February.

Other discoveries included a new species of the genus Lilioceris – a bright green leaf beetle with a purplish spot at the top of its wing casing – along with numerous species of rove beetles, chequered beetles, leaf beetles and longhorn beetles, many previously unrecorded on the island.

With the support of the AM Foundation, 20 AM research scientists visited the island over three months.

Above: Dr Chris Reid conducts field work on Lord Howe Island Right: Wood boring longhorn beetle Oricopis insulana

COVER STORY

BY MELINDA HAM EDITOR

FACELIFT FOR THE FUTURE Conservators, designers and historians prepare for the opening of the Westpac Long Gallery.

Sheldon Teare is rapt in concentration as he uses a mini dental vacuum to suck the dust off every feather on a century-old male peacock that sits more than a metre tall on his desk.

“We wear gloves because some of these animals were preserved using arsenic,” he says. “We also have to ensure every feather is smooth, not ruffled or unzipped.” The final stage is to paint the feathers with water and a thickening agent, using blotting paper to draw off any residual dust.

Teare is the Australian Museum’s Natural History Conservator, one of six conservators preparing, cleaning, restoring and documenting more than 220 objects for display in the refurbished Long Gallery. It will open in mid-October in celebration of the AM’s 190th anniversary.

A year-long renovation, funded through a partnership between the AM and its community of donors, Westpac and the NSW Government, will ensure the newly named Westpac Long Gallery resumes its place at the heart of Australia’s first museum.

‘We don’t want to alter it too much … every change must be reversible.’

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Natural History Conservator Sheldon Teare preparing the peacock for exhibition

The Westpac Long Gallery Fran Dorey, the AM’s Exhibition Project Manager, leans over the railing looking down to the floor below where workers in hard hats drill and sand in the Long Gallery, giving the space a much-need facelift, more than a 150 years after it was built.

Driving the whole exhibition design, content and planning process since the end of 2014, Dorey is the main coordinator behind what will become the Westpac Long Gallery’s exhibition – 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum.

“The point is that the gallery is not frozen in the past but has evolved and adapted over 150 years,” she says. “The refreshed gallery will pay tribute to the past but embrace the future – enhanced with technology such as video, audio and interactive touch screens.”

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 19

Meanwhile, the gallery’s first floor tells the stories of 100 legendary Australians. A selection committee of people with diverse interests have curated the list, which will be revealed in full at opening but includes the like of cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, soprano Dame Nellie Melba and Cathy Freeman, Indigenous Olympic gold medallist. At the gallery’s opening, the AM will announce the full list.

To see some of the treasures and read their stories, go to pages 22-24. Here are a few preview artefacts with their own tales to tell: Gerard Krefft’s chair Krefft was a brilliant scientist and AM curator from 1864 until his abrupt dismissal in 1874. He published books and papers about Australian minerals, snakes and fossils and was also an early proponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in Australia.

After an ongoing dispute with the AM’s trustees, they fired him. Krefft reacted angrily by barricading himself in his museum office. One Trustee, Edward SmithHall, hired two prize-fighting boxers, who broke into Krefft’s rooms and carried him out to the street, still sitting in this exact Victorian armchair – made of cedar and leather and designed in a Louis XIV style.

Aaron Maestri, the AM’s Exhibition Designer and the project’s visionary, used a 3D printer to create a model the size of a doll’s house of the Westpac Long Gallery, which helped him figure out where and how all the display cases (purpose-built in Italy) will sit.

“The gallery is a great example of Victorian architecture of the time, similar to the GPO and the grand bank buildings, but the original design has been obscured by additions and alterations over the years,” Maestri says.

“While we are working with a heritage architect to restore the gallery’s original structure, we are definitely bringing the exhibition design into the 21st century; it is lean and modern but retains the solidness of its history.”

Above: Exhibition Designer Aaron Maestri’s model of the Long Gallery Top right: Gerard Krefft during his tenure at the AM (1861–74) Right: Motu headdress

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Motu headdress Australian photographer and journalist Frank Hurley collected this colourful and intricate headdress, decorated with owl, lorikeet and other parrot feathers and tortoise shell, from the Central Province of Papua New Guinea in 1923. The number of feathers signifies the owner’s achievements and status. Roro speakers, high-ranking men from the Kairuku-Hiri District of Central Province, still wear the headdresses today at special ceremonies.

Hurley collected this item on a trip to PNG with Allan McCulloch, an AM scientist, along with 700 objects that remained on show for half a century at the AM.

The 200 treasures To mark its 190-year anniversary, the AM decided to exhibit 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum – 100 objects from the AM’s collection and the stories of 100 people who have influenced the nation – that contributed to the the region’s vivid history.

Faced with the challenge of selecting those items from a collection of 18 million specimens and artefacts across 15 collection areas, the AM hired an external curator, Dr Peter Emmett, for the role.

“First of all he had to answer ‘what is a treasure?’” Dorey says. “Does it reflect the object’s monetary value, its cultural association, scientific value, beauty or its uniqueness? He had many conversations with the staff and collection managers and some people might feel some of his choices are controversial. Why is that a treasure when some people might consider it junk?”

One way Emmett handled this, adds Dorey, was to create “entanglements”; considering each of the 100 objects, not in isolation but by association with other objects. “He focused on the stories of the objects, when and how they were discovered and their relationships with other items in the museum.”

Maestri and Dorey are now working out how to exhibit the treasures on the ground floor of the gallery, ensuring that every aspect from the lighting to the labelling creates the best possible visitor experience. An additional 120 complementary specimens are part of the exhibition.

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 21

The museum opened to the public in 1855 with 10,000 curious visitors flocking …

Back behind-the-scenes in the museum, Teare’s colleague, Brooke Randall has just completed work on an elliptical wicker and resin shield from the Florida Islands in the Solomon Islands. Dating from 1901 and inlaid with tiny squares of nautilus shell, it’s one of only 20 in the world.

“Plant fibres around the edge of the shield had broken and started to lift, so I had to use methylcellulose, a conservation-grade adhesive and small weights to consolidate the areas,” she says.

Teare adds that the current philosophy in conservation is to minimise handling and intervention at every stage. “We work as closely as possible within the properties and parameters of the existing object. We don’t want to alter it too much, even to repair it. Every change must be reversible,” he says.

The back story Construction originally began on Australia’s first museum building in 1846 on the corner of College and William Streets. Designed by Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis, it had a west wing, and a north wing that housed the Long Gallery. The museum opened to the public in 1855 with 10,000 curious visitors flocking through the doors in the first week alone.

As they wandered through the two-storey high hall encircled by columns, with almost continuous showcases between them, like glazed shopfronts, the visitors peered at specimens crammed together. Curators then were more concerned with quantity than quality.

A visitor to Sydney at the time described what he saw at the AM: “The interior contains specimens of the war weapons... models of the most celebrated groups and statues of ancient and modern sculpture ... descriptive cards with handles are placed on the top of each.”

Over the next 10 years, the Long Gallery expanded its display with 11 cases of skeletons, foreign and Australian mammals, five cases of marsupials, four cases of fish, minerals and rocks, two cabinets of shells, four cabinets of insects, a case of Danish stone hatchets and Aboriginal implements, and another case of snakes and lizards.

In 1890, the AM added another storey to the Long Gallery, turning the roof into a skylight bringing natural light in through an atrium, while elegant curved wooden staircases linked the levels at each end.

During the 1920s, the AM gradually built 10 dioramas around the gallery’s walls, showing scenes of specimens as they appeared in situ, in real life, including the Admiralty Islets Bird Group from Lord Howe Island – the only diorama that survives today.

Through the 1970s, the Long Gallery became a temporary exhibition space and then in the 1990s transformed into the skeleton hall with an array of 120 skeletons including Sir Hercules, the famous thoroughbred, on continuous display since the 1870s.

Right: The Long Gallery c1950

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200 Treasures of the Australian Museum in the Westpac Long Gallery will open to the public on 14 October. To support this iconic project by funding a treasure, contact Michel Zwecker, Development Manager michel.zwecker@austmus.gov.au EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 23

PHOTO FRAME

BY FRAN DOREY EXHIBITION PROJECT MANAGER

Revealing our treasures The Australian Museum is currently restoring the country’s first museum gallery, the iconic Long Gallery. Jointly funded by Westpac, the NSW Government, the AM and its community of donors, the Westpac Long Gallery will reopen in October this year, to celebrate the AM’s 190th and Westpac’s 200th anniversaries.

Featuring the new exhibition 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum, the restored gallery will showcase invaluable objects from our world-class collection, which reveal the stories of the region and the nation.

Eric the pliosaur (above) was found in 1987 by opal miner Joe Vida. Pliosaurs are short-necked plesiosaurs, aquatic carnivorous reptiles that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (about 200–66 million years ago).

Eric’s bones – as well as the tiny fossilised bones of fish inside his stomach – opalised as he was preserved in the sandstone.

The Blaschka glass model (left) was crafted between 1879-1883 by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father-andson team from Dresden, Germany. At this time, scientists hadn’t developed methods to preserve soft-bodied marine creatures without distorting them and losing their vibrant colour, so they used wax or paper pulp models – as well as glass.

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This Cerussite specimen (main, left) has bladed crystals up to 28.7 cm long – the longest of any Cerussite specimen in the world. Cerussite is made of lead, carbon and oxygen. This piece comes from a collection assembled by the managers of a Broken Hill mine after its closure.

The First Australian Banknote (top) – which reappeared mysteriously in Scotland – is one of an unknown number of notes the Bank of New South Wales issued on its first day of operation on the 8th April 1817.

The Sydney Gazette, the colony’s first newspaper, printed the note from a copperplate etching made by a local craftsman-engraver.

The Maitland Bar Nugget (above) discovered in 1887 on Meroo Creek, north of Hill End, weighs 10.7 kg, is the 10th-largest gold nugget ever discovered in NSW, and is one of the purest in the world.

Lost in the 1930s, it was rediscovered in 1956 in a box that Treasury officers had unwittingly used as cricket stumps.

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 25

COLLECTIONS

PHOTO FRAME

Archaeologists excavated this Egyptian mummy (left) from a tomb in Thebes (modern-day Luxor). The mummy is wrapped in fragile linen and is lying in a wooden coffin, painted with devotional scenes. Originally, AM scientists believed it contained a man. Then in 2004, a computed tomography (CT) scan at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital revealed the mummy actually held the body of a woman, mummified 2,200 years ago.

BY COLIN MACGREGOR MANAGER MATERIALS CONSERVATION

Totem swap

This kipuka or feathered cape was given to Captain Cook on his third – and fatal – Pacific voyage by Ali’i (chief) Kalani’opu’u, as an official welcome to Hawaii in December 1778 or January 1779. Rulers wore this kipuka for ceremonies and in battle.

The cape is made from woven olana fibre and its plumage comes from a red-feathered I’iwi honeyeater, a yellow o’o moho and mamo, and a black cockerel.

During an expedition to southern Vietnam in 2012, AM scientist Dr Jodi Rowley and her team discovered this green, 10 cm-long flying frog (right), and named it Helen’s Flying Frog, Rhacophorus helenae, after Rowley’s mother.

The frog has large fully webbed hands and feet, as well as flaps of webbing on the edge of its arms, enabling it to glide down from trees to breed in forest pools.

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Rising above an array of light aircraft, locomotives and buses, a boldly decorated head of a thunder bird glares out over the 20th century technology. The 10-metre-high totem pole carved by Kwakiutl artist Richard Hunt from near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast has lain horizontal since it was removed from the College Street atrium in 2006.

Finally, with the remodelling of the transport hall at the Museums Discovery Centre in Castle Hill – a collaboration between the Australian Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and Sydney Living Museums – the totem pole has a space high enough to accommodate it. After it was craned into position last June, it was immediately obvious that the pole had the strength of character to stare down the industrial wonders around it without blinking.

Carved in Brisbane for the World Expo in 1988 as part of Canada’s presence there, the story of how the pole ended up in the AM’s possession stretches back more than seven decades.

In 1912, a group of traditional dancers visited Australia from Canada’s west coast. But they had to abandon the tour part way through for financial reasons, and sell two totem poles, dance costumes and other cultural objects to the AM to raise money for their return fares to Canada.

In 1988, the AM and the Canadian Museum of Civilisation agreed they would repatriate the important collection from 1912 back to Canada, in return for the totem pole on display at the World Expo and several dance masks. During the 1970s and 80s the AM was a world leader in the repatriation of cultural material to original owners in a number of countries.

Today, 200 metres from where the totem pole now stands in the Museums Discovery Centre is the AM store, purposebuilt for items that don’t fit at the William Street museum premises. Housed for the first time in a 3,000 m² area (the size of about 11 tennis courts), completed last year, objects include a 12 metre-long canoe, a house front from Papua New Guinea and a whale skull.

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 27

SCIENCE

BY ALEX NUTTALL AMRI AND EXTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS COORDINATOR

High-tech REVIVAL Scientists are using high-tech equipment to unlock the Australian Museum’s natural history collection in new and innovative ways.

Long after the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) became extinct in 1936, a preserved specimen of a pup in the collections at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) now has a new purpose.

Last October, through collaborative research efforts, scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) borrowed the brains of the pup and other marsupials and monotremes from AMRI’s collection. With the help of technology, these researchers discovered new information on the connectivity of different parts of the brain.

“The fact that samples collected nearly 100 years ago can be used today using new technology shows how important and relevant the work of AMRI and our collaborators is,” says Dr Rebecca Johnson, AMRI’s Director.

For 190 years, scientists have been accessing the Australian Museum’ extensive collection of 18 million objects and specimens to conduct their research – but advances in technology have changed how this research is conducted.

Using a specialised research MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner at UNSW the researchers created high-resolution images showing strong contrast in each brain’s internal structure. By using methods that indirectly measure the motion of water molecules in brain tissue, they were also able to extract invaluable information about major brain fibres that connect important brain regions and functions (see image on the right).

“MRI imaging of the preserved brains of endangered or extinct species is an exciting innovation in the study of brain evolution,” says Professor Ken Ashwell, Neuroanatomist at UNSW’s School of Medical Sciences. “It allows us to track pathways and study functional connections we could never analyse with older experimental techniques.”

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Dr Andre Bongers, manager of the pre-clinical MRI facility at UNSW, adds that the scans have wider implications. “The imaging techniques provide an enduring archive because the digital data generated can be widely available even if the original specimen deteriorates over time,” he says.

Scanning it In collaboration with the National Imaging Facility and the University of Queensland’s Centre for Advanced Imaging, the AM is using both MRI and CT (Computed Tomography) scans to gather data about other species.

CT scanners work by sending a series of X-ray beams through a plant or animal sample, providing a 3-D image. Researchers develop these on to film and create cross-sectional images of the sample which they then stitch together.

Last year, AM and CAI scientists used a CT scanner to examine a Philine – a genus of sea slugs, which are carnivorous, snail-like marine molluscs in the family Philinidae. Philine species usually live in relatively deep water on soft sediments.

“This Philine is of great interest to us here at the AM as this specimen appears to be a new species,” says Dr Shane Ahyong, AM Principal Research Scientist. The scan revealed the internal structures in minute detail, right down to the creature’s last meal of micro-snails, each only a few millimetres in length.

Scientists chose this specimen for imaging because most of its important identifying features are internal. Usually they would dissect an animal to get this same information, but the imaging technique allows them to study the major internal features intact.

Whole brain connectome of a Short-beaked echidna.

Photograph © Dr Andre Bongers – the UNSW Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre Top: High field research MRI system at UNSW, Sydney. Photograph by Anne Graham © UNSW

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 29

BY MADELAINE LOVE DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

A cat statue donated to the Australian Museum in 1913 was later found to be an elaborate fake.

Illustration by Phyllis Clarke

Real or fake?

UNSUNG WOMEN

BY VANESSA FINNEY MANAGER ARCHIVES AND RECORDS

In a collection of more than 18 million objects acquired over two centuries from around the world, how do you spot a fake?

Egyptian artefact or plaster-covered can?

In 1913 Ernest Wunderlich, Museum Trustee and Egyptian enthusiast, donated a cat statue, initially believed to be a genuine Egyptian artefact. But even at the time, AM experts questioned the statue’s authenticity. Nearly a century later, in 2001, signs of corrosion told the tale.

“Sometimes the style is just not right, but often it is the materials that give it away,” says Colin Macgregor, AM’s Manager Materials Conservation.

“If the materials used are poor quality, something will deteriorate and then expose a surface flaw.”

Further investigation by the Materials Conservation team determined that the figure was in fact an elaborate fake – a rolled steel can, coated with tin or zinc and disguised with a layer of plaster.

Since the ancient Egyptians hadn’t invented rolled steel, the museum had the artefact X-rayed.

This revealed that, as suspected, the cat’s front legs were two steel rods and the head was solid plaster.

The forger had also applied a surface finish to give the statue a “corroded bronze” look.

While not an ancient artefact, and likely made in the early 20th century, the cat serves as interesting evidence of market demand for Egyptian antiquities at the time.

The red paint trick Another tale of museum forgery begins in 1947 when naturalist C.W. Wyatt’s obsession with 30 |

collecting rare butterflies led him to steal some 1,500 specimens from the AM. Fast-forward almost 70 years to 2016.

Lepidopterist Dr Michael Braby requested the Holotype of the butterfly Pseudalmenus chlorinda barringtonensis from the AM’s collection.

(A “Holotype” is the primary specimen upon which the description of a new species is based.)

But he noticed something strange. A comparative look at the other barringtonensis specimens in the collection revealed the supposed Holotype was much smaller.

Closer inspection under a microscope showed red paint peeling off the butterfly’s hind wings. The Holotype was actually a specimen of a different subspecies P. c. chlorinda altered to look like barringtonensis.

Could this have been the work of Wyatt all those years ago?

Red paint on the wings gave this butterfly Holotype away.

The Scott sisters’ stunning paintings of butterflies and moths may steal the limelight, but Harriet and Helena Scott also created other scientific illustrations for three generations of Australian Museum Curators – Dr George Bennett, Gerard Krefft and Edward Ramsay.

The Scotts are the most famous of a usually unsung group of women who worked at the AM, not only as scientific illustrators, but also as taxidermists, sculptors and artists – combining their talents in art and science to prepare scientific papers, museum publications, galleries, exhibitions and displays.

Jane Tost, taxidermist extraordinaire, was the AM’s first professional female artist. She was hired in 1863 and prepared some of the earliest animal mounts. Educator Winifred West (who went on to found Frensham School in Mittagong) illustrated shells from 1910.

It was during the 1920s that a group of women artists – working mostly on commission and in insecure, part-time positions – helped to create a new visual identity for the museum. Their work on innovative and colourful natural history dioramas, was the beginning of less cluttered and more visitorfocused gallery displays. We began publishing The Australian Museum Magazine (the very Explore you are reading today), expanded our lecture program

(with hand-coloured lantern slides a common feature) and sold new colour postcards of Australian birds and animals.

Illustrator Ethel King is the most prominent of the group. She illustrated snakes for AM scientist JR Kinghorn and worked on preparing animals for display. An iconic photograph depicts her, palette in hand, face-to-face with a mounted Queensland groper in 1925.

Another is Lilian Medland, wife of Tom Iredale, AM conchologist (someone who studies mollusc shells). Medland specialised in bird illustrations and also worked on her husband’s books.

Plucky Phyllis Clarke travelled to Lord Howe Island on an expedition in 1922. Working alongside male scientists, she created reference paintings of the view from the nesting site selected for reconstruction of the Lord Howe Island diorama. Back at the AM, she painted the stormy diorama backdrop.

To celebrate our 190th anniversary and recognise women’s historic and continuing role in the fine art of scientific illustration, the AM is launching the inaugural 2017 Australian Museum Scientific Illustration Scholarship, open to Australian students.

Find out more. Entries close 30 June 2017.

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 31

CITIZEN SCIENCE

BY JESSICA O’DONNELL DIGITAL COLLECTIONS AND CITIZEN SCIENCE OFFICER

From goannas and sparrows to quolls and kangaroos, citizen scientists play an increasing role in identifying animals from camera trap footage – and the Australian Museum is helping them do it.

CAMERA In the tropical forests of Ujung Kulon Peninsula, Indonesia, the last living population of critically endangered Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) graze on leaves and saplings, and keep cool by bathing in mud holes. Historically, Javan rhinos lived all over Southeast Asia and parts of China, however poaching and habitat loss have taken their toll.

With fewer than 60 individuals left in the Indonesian population and none in captivity, scientists and conservationists became gravely concerned about how long these elusive rhinos would survive. Then in 2010, video camera traps set up in Ujung Kulon National Park captured footage of two Javan rhino mothers with calves. This footage provided hope that the Javan rhino population may continue to grow.

Animal scientists worldwide are increasingly using camera traps as a vital research tool.

WildCount started in 2012 encompassing more than 300 motion-sensing cameras capturing animals inhabiting 150 parks and reserves. Some of the 32 |

cameras use white light, however infrared light is particularly useful for nocturnal animals disturbed by camera flashes.

WildCount will continue over 10 years and will assess how native and pest species are faring. You can find out more about the project by visiting the NSW Environment website.

The advantage of camera traps is that scientists can observe animals behaving naturally within their environments. A significant challenge, is that camera traps can generate hundreds of thousands, if not millions of images. Someone must examine each image to determine whether there’s an animal in the frame, identify the animal and, if appropriate, describe some element of its behaviour.

Some computer programs can identify animals by the markings on their coats, but only when the photos are of a certain quality. Generally, a human spotter is much better suited to this task. However, can you imagine the time it would take a research team to classify all these images?

TRAPPING Enter citizen scientists To combat this problem, scientists are increasingly outsourcing classification of camera trap images to online communities of volunteers through crowdsourcing platforms such as the Australian Museum’s DigiVol and Wildlife Spotter projects.

These websites present camera trap images from a diverse range of scientific research projects (including WildCount). You can read why each project is important, what kind of animals you might expect to see, or what kind of animal behaviour you might observe. Guides and tutorials give you tips on classifying and online forums provide an opportunity to engage with your community of online citizen scientists.

So, do you fancy a trip to the desert? Perhaps you would like to classify animals found in the Northern Territory’s Watarrka National Park? Here researchers from Charles Darwin University have set up camera traps at waterholes to better understand the local biodiversity. You can help to classify frogs,

goannas and spinifex pigeons among other desert animals.

Or is birdwatching more your style? Researchers from James Cook University in Queensland are researching the nesting behaviour of Pied Imperial Pigeons in Northern Australia using automated cameras focused on their nests. You can help by answering questions about the number, age and behaviour of these birds. There’s a project to suit every keen citizen scientist.

Visit DigiVol and Wildlife Spotter to see what projects you can get involved in.

Above, from left to right: Animals caught on camera – common brushtail possum, swamp wallaby, fox, wedge-tailed eagle and fallow deer. Photographs © Office of Environment and Heritage

EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 33

AM MEMBERS

Museum memories

A young boy and girl study a display titled Animals with Backbones c1960.

Below: BillCameron OAM

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.

Lifetime Patron Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE

Patrons The late Senta Taft-Hendry Ann Macintosh Trust Brian Sherman AM and Dr Gene Sherman AM Chris and Gina Grubb Alasdair and Prue Macleod Memocorp Australia Pty Ltd Helen Molesworth Benefactors Mary Holt and the late Dr John Holt

President’s Circle

Australian Museum Member Bill Cameron, a boarder at Scots College in Bellevue Hill in the 1920s, recalled how he regularly visited the AM on free weekends.

Two or three of us from school would catch a tram from the Eastern Suburbs that stopped at College Street. The fare for 15-year-old students was about five pence.

The first thing you saw when you came in the front door of the museum was a very big glass case with a pride of lions – there was a lion and three or four lionesses dispersed amongst a pile of rocks.

Then you looked up and saw the whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.

I remember a Tasmanian devil and a Tasmanian tiger. There was also a group of three or four native cats (quolls) in another case and the floor was littered with black and white feathers. My mother used to recall native cats fighting in the canvas ceiling of her childhood home near Tenterfield in the 1880s.

My particular interest was birds, so I usually made a beeline for the bird gallery. I remember the 34 |

cases of birds’ eggs because I collected eggs. Many of the birds reminded me of my early childhood on a station called Welltown near Goondiwindi in southern Queensland; for instance, the spotted bowerbird had a bower littered with sheep bones and pieces of green bottle glass. The male had a patch of pink feathers on the back of its neck.

The Aboriginal weapons and artefacts and drawings of Indigenous people also interested me, some similar to the ones I had seen at Welltown.

They were heavy wooden sticks with one pointed end for digging yams and the other thickened to use as a throwing stick to bring down game.

Do you have a favourite memory from visiting the AM? Celebrate our 190th and share your stories and photos online or by tagging your #AMmemory on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Claude and Maryanne Gauchat Chris and Gina Grubb Ian and Stephanie Hardy Bill and Alison Hayward Judy Lee Diccon and Elizabeth Loxton Robert Rich Brian Sherman AM and Dr Gene Sherman AM Dick and Pip Smith Foundation Director’s Club David Armstrong Jenny Crivelli Kim McKay AO David Rickards Tracey Steggall Shona and David Thodey Anonymous Treasures Circle Robert Albert AO RFD David and Megan Armstrong The Calvert-Jones Foundation Carrawa Foundation Jenny Crivelli John Dickinson Warwick Evans Claude and Maryanne Gauchat Belinda Gibson Chris and Gina Grubb Brian Hartzer John and Frances Ingham W and A Johnson Family Foundation Keith and Maureen Kerridge Jim Lennon in memory of Jean Lennon Lindblad Expeditions

Catherine Livingstone AO Diccon and Elizabeth Loxton Alasdair and Prue Macleod Memocorp Australia Pty Ltd Mark Nelson Gretel Packer The Paradice Family Foundation Patterson Pearce Foundation The Purcell Endowment Fund in honor of Mrs Lorna McClelland Prof Jan Scott, Paul Connor and Prof Ian Hickie AM Guardians Martin and Ursula Armstrong Ken and Roddy Bell Margot and Stephanie Chinneck Justice Jane Mathews AO Justice Robert McDougall Alice Oppen OAM John Pearson John and Christina Stitt Vonwiller Foundation Wendy Walker Custodians Michelle Atkinson Bill and Annette Blinco Natalia Bradshaw Pauline and Alan Campbell Philip Cornwell Hugh Dixson Belinda Gibson Karina Kelly John Leece AM Howard Lewis Nick Minogue Lily W Müng Endowment Anne Pickles David Robb Jane and Neville Rowden Alison Scott Cassandra Seaton David and Daniela Shannon Fiona Sinclair Jeremy Spinak Tehmi Sukhla Anne Sullivan Vera Vargassoff Wavish Family Foundation Richard Whillas Stephen Wilson Anonymous Supporters Antoinette Albert

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Ursula Burgoyne Sam and Louise Dawson Rod and Robyn Dent in honour of Pat Dent and 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 and Mrs Deirdre Kirby Roger Langmead David Leece Leighton Llewellyn James McColl Mineralogical Society of New South Wales Inc Dr Max Moulds George and 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 303MullenLowe Samsung Stockland Partner ANSTO Media Partners JCDecaux National Geographic News Corp Australia Supporting Partners 4 Pines Brewing Company Archie Rose Distilling Co Australian Geographic Bamstone City of Sydney Cortell Australia Digital Camera Warehouse Guardian Global Systems IAS Fine Arts Logistics IBM Australia Kent Street Studio Oatley Fine Wine Merchants Valiant Hire EXPLORE Winter 2017 | 35

Exquisite gifts FROM THE SCOTT SISTERS, NOW IN THE AM STORE

Exclusive Scott sisters’ giclée prints available from The Store by Fairfax