Explore Magazine - Summer 2015, Volume 37 No. 1

Autumn/Winter April 2015

VOLUME

37

NUMBER

1

Wild Planet on the horizon Rewilding Madagascar with giant tortoises Garrigarrang: Sea Country and the path to knowledge

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FROM THE DIRECTOR

CONTENTS OPINION From the Director Transforming the Museum

1

In this issue Your guide to this edition’s stories

3

Review Martyn Robinson reviews two new titles

18

On the agenda Rewilding Madagascar by Owen Griffiths

27

Members message Serena Todd’s guide to upcoming events

34

FEATURES Birdwing butterflies on a wild planet Centenary of a historic butterfly collection and book by Jacquie Recsei

4

Behind the scenes Wild Planet on the horizon by Brendan Atkins

7

Now showing Ngara: the path to knowledge, wisdom and survival

by Amanda Jane Reynolds

10

From the collection A bridge between two cultures

by Scott Mitchell

14

Science Sydney’s freshwater fishes by Sally Reader

16

Science Rock of surprises by Brian Timms

22

Australian Museum Foundation Expedition to Southern French Polynesia by Mandy Reid

24

FAVOURITES Science Bytes News from AMRI Xplorer young scientist liftout Soil’s alive

6 centre

Xplanations Search > Discover

19

In your backyard with Martyn Robinson

20

Members travel Travel with Museum scientists

31

Photofeast Celebrating 50 years of wildlife photography

32

Members events Night talks and sleepovers

35

transforming

THE MUSEUM The saying ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ is true! April marks my first year at the Australian Museum and it has been an intense, satisfying and fun year developing and implementing the Museum’s exciting transformation program.

Construction of our new contemporary floating glass entrance, the Crystal Hall, and accessible walkway is now well underway, and we’re on track for a mid-year opening (if the weather stays on our side). Award-winning architect Rachel Neeson, the project team and I can hardly believe that the dream of a new entrance is becoming a reality, opening the Museum to William Street and the thousands of people who pass by each day.

COLLECTIONS ON SHOW

As part of the transformation, the new 630m2 Wild Planet gallery, where the café, shop and entrance were previously located, is also under development. Telling the story of biodiversity around the world, this exhibition features 400 animal specimens and will truly reinforce the Australian Museum as the leading natural science museum in the region.

I am also pleased to announce the creation of the Pacific Spirit gallery on Level 2, which is due to open at the end of April. This intimate gallery features the world’s largest display of Malagan masks from Papua New Guinea along with other extraordinary objects from our renowned Pacific collection. Pacific Spirit has been designed and curated by our specialist staff and represents a preview of what is to come with two major galleries now in the planning stages.

Our Indigenous Australians galleries are also being upgraded. Garrigarrang: Sea Country opened last November telling the inspiring story of local Indigenous peoples and their relationship to the ocean and waterways, while our other gallery focusing on NSW Aboriginal culture is having a major facelift with new lighting, carpet, fixtures and more of the collection on display.

We’ve moved the café to Level 4 where you can enjoy a cup of coffee, snack or lunch while taking in the panoramic view of our city from Hyde Park to the Harbour. The Rooftop Cafe is proving popular with our staff too, so please stop by – you never know which scientist, explorer or researcher you’ll find up there. And of course as Members you will receive 10% discount on your purchases in both the café and our new Museum shop.

SUPPORT FOR SCIENCE

All this activity is only the tip of the iceberg as Australian Museum Research Institute staff work tirelessly to discover new species (130 last year alone!), publish papers, secure grants and add significantly to our understanding of our natural world. Science is now core to everything we do at the Australian Museum and you’ll be seeing more of our scientists’ work on the floor in the future.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

WELCOME

in this ISSUE Welcome to the Autumn/Winter edition of Explore magazine. As Kim McKay reports in her foreword, the Museum transformation project is moving into overdrive with the Rooftop Cafe open for business and the Crystal Hall entrance under construction.

Conservator Megan Dean-Jones restoring a White-rumped Vulture, Gyps bengalensis, for the Wild Planet exhibition.

Photo by Billy Ryan.

BIODIVERSITY MATTERS From top left clockwise Crystal Hall architect Rachel Neeson with Kim McKay. Photo by James Morgan.

Spectacular views from the Level 4 Rooftop Cafe.

Photo by Billy Ryan.

CULTURE CONNECT

Architect’s impression of the Crystal Hall entrance.

Illustration by Rachel Neeson Architects.

All of these projects cost money – funds provided by our partners, donors, Members and supporters, as well as that gratefully received from the NSW Government.

To that end, I’m pleased to announce that as part of our Adventure World partnership, a new Adventure World Special Interest Travel Program for Members has been created.

These extraordinary trips to exotic places like Brazil and Vietnam will be accompanied by some of the Museum’s expert scientists (details, page 31).

Among the Eora people, Ngara is the path to knowledge, wisdom and survival. Join Amanda Jane Reynolds as she takes you on the journey through Aboriginal knowledge and spirituality at the heart of the Museum’s Garrigarrang: Sea Country exhibition (story, page 10). In the exhibition, you can also see some intriguing sculptures of Sydney Harbour Bridge that quite literally bridge Aboriginal and European cultures (page 14).

And for those of you wanting to be part of the Australian Museum’s ‘night of nights’, why not book a ticket (or even a table) now for our annual black-tie gala, The Night at the Museum. We’ll again be raising funds for the Long Gallery’s transformation to make this first museum gallery in the Southern Hemisphere the ‘must-see’ gallery in Australia. A cool $3million will do it! You can book your tickets on our website.

KIM McKAY AO

Executive Director & CEO

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Understanding biodiversity has always been the Museum’s ‘core business’. Entomologist Jacquie Recsei reveals some original specimens of rare birdwing butterflies illustrated 100 years ago for Butterflies of Australia, the first butterfly guidebook to be arranged scientifically (page 4). Technical Officer Sally Reader showcases Sydney’s little-known freshwater fish fauna from the Museum’s collection (page 16).

Expeditions to collect specimens can take many forms, like the recent trip by four Museum scientists to Southern French Polynesia to collect marine invertebrates and fish (page 24).

More modestly, Research Associate and retiree Brian Timms collects unique microfauna from the temporary rain-filled puddles found on top of granite boulders (page 22).

Turning research into action, Research Associate Owen Griffiths plans to restore the health of vegetation communities in Madagascar by reintroducing giant tortoises to control the grasses and leaf litter that cause destructive wildfires (page 27).

TEAM EFFORT

Thank you all for making my first year leading the Australian Museum one I will always cherish – from the warm welcome I received from our volunteers, to that given by the creative, smart and dedicated staff; the support from the Trust members, especially President Catherine Livingstone and the Australian Museum Foundation and Lizard Island boards; the team at the Department of Trade & Industry and the Minister’s office – and all of you, our wonderful Members and supporters. It has been a true team effort. Roll on year two . . . as we work towards 2017 and celebrating the Australian Museum’s 190th year.

Within the Museum’s sandstone walls, the new Wild Planet exhibition is materialising in the space formerly occupied by the shop and café. With more than 400 animal specimens, Wild Planet makes a definitive statement about the crucial role of biodiversity in our lives (story, page 7) and is scheduled to open in mid-2015. Biodiversity is framed in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, now showing at the Museum and celebrating its 50th year with some very special images (see page 32).

Esme Timbery with shellwork. Photo by Scott Mitchell.

Members can have another generous helping of brain food with Night Talks (page 34), books (reviews, page 18) and tours to faraway places with Museum scientists (page 31). There’s much, much more to enjoy in the Museum and this edition of Explore magazine.

BRENDAN ATKINS, EDITOR

Please send your feedback on Explore magazine to explore@austmus.gov.au

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

FROM THE ARCHIVES

birdwing butterflies

Jacquie Recsei in Archives with butterfly specimens and proofs from the 1914 publication Butterflies of Australia. Photo by James Horan.

ON A

WILD PLANET We are pretty excited that the Museum’s new Wild Planet gallery will include those ostentatious members of the Entomology collection, the birdwing butterflies. These spectacular creatures include many rare species listed on CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The Museum acquired many butterfly specimens from GA (Athol) Waterhouse, a Museum Trustee from 1927 until 1947.

He donated his huge private collection of more than 30,000 specimens, including birdwings, during a short stint as Museum Trust President in 1930.

Waterhouse co-authored (with George Lyell) Butterflies of Australia, published by Angus & Robertson in 1914 – the first book to use a systematic and scientific approach to the Australian butterfly fauna. Our Research Library holds several copies in the Rare Book Collection, including Waterhouse’s personal copy with annotations. And our Archives hold many of the original illustrations by Phyllis Clarke, Allan McCulloch and other Museum artists reproduced in the book.

One hundred years later, the Australian birdwings illustrated in the book are still in the Museum’s collection and looking pretty spectacular, as birdwings do.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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We are now looking to display and conserve these irreplaceable specimens into the future. As part of this effort, our DigiVol team will be photographing all the birdwing specimens. Research Associate and entomologist Jean Weiner is our resident butterfly expert who is checking the original identifications of over 600 specimens for accuracy, while Technical Officer Russell Cox has checked the all-important data.

With new specimen cases planned, future generations of visitors and scientists alike can find inspiration in these most beautiful insects.

JACQUIE RECSEI, ENTOMOLOGY

Left Butterflies of Australia, published in 1914, was the first to arrange butterflies systematically. These two specimens are from the family Nymphalidae (emperors, monarchs, admirals, tortoiseshells and fritallaries). (left) Australian Lurcher, Yoma sabina parva (right) Tailed Emperor, Charaxes sempronius sempronius. The illustrations show dorsal (left) and ventral (right) views in monochrome to reduce printing costs. Illustrations by Allan McCulloch.

Above Birdwing butterflies from the Museum’s collection.

Male Ornithoptera priamus pronomus. Photo by James Horan.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

SCIENCE BYTES

BEHIND THE SCENES

Stay up to date with the latest research from the Australian Museum Research Institute, AMRI. Subscribe to the AMRI e-newsletter at australianmuseum.net.au/amri#subscribe

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

news

FROM AMRI Top An adult male of the newly recognised Wilkins’ Rockwallaby, Petrogale wilkinsi, photographed in Litchfield National Park, NT. Photo © Emily Miller.

EUREKA PRIZES ENTRIES OPEN Entries are now open for the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, the ‘Oscars of Australian Science’. Now in their 26th year, the Eureka Prizes reward outstanding science with 16 prizes across four categories: Research & Innovation; Leadership; Science Communication & Journalism; and School Science. Primary and Secondary students can enter the University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize, which is awarded for a short film that communicates a scientific concept in an engaging way.

Entries close at 7 pm AEST on 1 May 2015; finalists will be announced online on 24 July, with winners celebrated at a gala Awards Dinner on 26 August.

Enter or find more information at australianmuseum.net.au/eureka

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

wild PLANET THE MUSEUM IS PREPARING TO OPEN ITS FIRST NEW PERMANENT GALLERY SPACE IN 50 YEARS WITH THE WILD PLANET EXHIBITION.

Conservator Sheldon Teare unwraps the Museum’s new zebra specimen. Photo

by Megan Dean-Jones.

WEBLINK Read more about the discovery at australianmuseum.net.au/blogpost/science/amrihiding-in-plain-sight

BLUE BEETLES SORTED

Right Altica cyanea.

Photo by Max Beatson.

WEBLINK

Despite being regularly photographed by tourists visiting Kakadu and Litchfield national parks in the Northern Territory, the most widespread and common rock-wallaby found in the Top End has recently been recognised as a distinct species, genetically very different from superficially similar rock-wallabies in the Kimberley. The newly recognised species has been named Wilkins’ Rock-wallaby or the Eastern Short-eared Rock-wallaby, Petrogale wilkinsi, after Capt Sir GH Wilkins who in 1925 collected one of the first specimens of the species. The finding takes the number of rock-wallaby species known from Australia to 17, making them the largest group of living macropods (kangaroos and wallabies) and one of the most successful groups of Australian marsupials.

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Altica is a genus of blue or green leaf beetles with more than 230 species.

This blue species was originally described from a specimen collected in Sumatra by Danish naval officer Captain Daldorff in 1790. The same species was thought to be common in Australia, but new research

by Museum entomologists Chris Reid and Max Beatson has shown that four species occur in Australia – and Dahldorff’s isn’t one of them. Chris and Max recently disentangled some messy taxonomy for the group, some species of which may be biological control agents of weeds.

WEBLINK Read Chris Reid’s blog about solving this taxonomic puzzle at australianmuseum.net.au/blogpost/amri-news/ amri-disentangling-a-taxonomic-nightmare

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Wild Planet is coming! Taxidermists are busily stuffing skins, conservation staff are checking the condition of hundreds of historic specimens, and preparators are building displays. The exhibition is scheduled to open in mid-2015 in the Barnet Wing, the magnificent heritage space on College Street formerly used as the café and shop.

African Lion and Leopard, Sumatran Tiger, Asian Elephant and Grizzly Bear, as well as our latest acquisitions, a giraffe and zebra.

These last two arrived at the Museum safely in January, all the way from Macon, Missouri, after preparator Yuri Humeniuk flew to the States to oversee packing of the specimens into a 40-foot refrigerated shipping container.

CONNECTIONS

‘We weren’t quite sure of their exact state,’ Yuri said, ‘but they were in excellent condition and had been taxidermied to a very high standard.’ Frozen to minus 18 degrees during the journey to kill pests, the specimens arrived under chain of custody to be inspected by AQIS quarantine officers before being released to the Museum.

Visitors to Wild Planet will be greeted by an amazing parade of more than 400 mounted animal specimens, including many signature collection pieces of high importance and great scientific value, says project manager Liz Cowell.

‘Wild Planet introduces the theme that life is all around us, with a grand parade of some extraordinary species on display highlighting the relationship between people, culture and the natural environment’, Liz said.

Some of the more spectacular specimens on display include the Black Rhino,

THE TREE OF LIFE

Biodiversity is always changing through evolution and extinction, and the Wild Planet exhibition draws on the Museum’s extensive fossil collection to show how some extinct species looked and lived. ‘Wild Planet

places humans in the process of evolution and our role in extinction’, Liz said.

The exhibition includes a rare specimen of the Thylacine, hunted to extinction in the 1930s, and vulnerable and endangered Australian species like the Mountain Pygmy Possum, Orange-bellied Parrot and Gilbert’s Potoroo.

‘Wild Planet emphasises that all species, both living and extinct, are connected through the tree of life‘, said Museum ecologist Dr Richard Major from the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI). ‘But the tree is being pruned at increasing rates – some due to natural causes, but mainly from human causes, such as climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and wildlife exploitation.’

Dr Dan Faith, a Senior Principal Research Scientist at AMRI, says that the tree of life tells us the loss of some species may be more serious than the loss of others.

‘A species or genus on its own branch is considered evolutionarily distinctive

because it has few close relatives and many unique features. If we lose that branch we actually lose lots of evolutionary history and a suite of unique survival “inventions”’, he said.

Under this scenario, the potential for future evolution is also reduced. ‘What incredible creatures would have lost their chance to make it on the world’s stage?

What benefits to our world – and ourselves – will have vanished?’

BIODIVERSITY MATTERS

Wild Planet emphasises that we depend on the tree of life for food, water, oxygen, fibres, shelter, medicine and fuel, as well as many other future benefits waiting to be discovered.

Exhibition Coordinator Fran Dorey said that Wild Planet includes many cultural perspectives. ‘Biodiversity has significance for many traditional cultures, with Indigenous Australians connecting to nature through animal totems, creator spirits and ancestral beings.

‘Also, many world cultures have forged national identities with heraldic animals which are represented in the exhibition with specimens, including our own national Red Kangaroo and Emu and others like the Toucan and Bald Eagle.

‘We’ve even included the domestic pig, which is fascinating because different cultures have very different perspectives of the same animal. Depending on where you are, the pig can be taboo, a staple food or even a form of currency, as it is in some Pacific countries.’

The exhibition also highlights Australian Museum science relating to evolution, biodiversity and conservation with a focus on current research projects.

From unravelling the Koala genome to identifying new species of rock-wallaby, the exhibition highlights the Museum’s work in biodiversity identification and conservation.

‘Wild Planet is the first new permanent gallery space to open at the Museum

‘. . . all species, both living and extinct, are connected through the tree of life . . .’ in 50 years’, said Kim McKay, the Museum’s Executive Director & CEO. ‘The exhibition is planned to grow in stages so that in future years visitors can return and find new specimens and activities.

‘The new exhibition is part of the first stage in the transformation of the Museum, and we’re very grateful to everyone who’s supporting us in achieving this vision, from the NSW State Government, Members and supporters to staff and volunteers.’

BRENDAN ATKINS, EDITOR

Wild Planet is scheduled to open at the Australian Museum in mid-2015. Turn to page 36 for your chance to sleep over in the new exhibition.

Left to right Conservator Michael Kelly with specimen of a rare Black Rhinoceros destined for the Wild Planet exhibition. Photo by Stuart Humphreys. Other photos: Zebra, Red Kangaroo and Grizzly Bear © Eric Isselee; Emu © Anan Kwaewkhammul.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

NOW SHOWING

ngara AMANDA JANE REYNOLDS INTRODUCES THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND MUSEUM’S NEW GARRIGARRANG: SEA COUNTRY EXHIBITION.

THE PATH TO KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND SURVIVAL AMANDA JANE REYNOLDS INTRODUCES THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THE MUSEUM’S NEW GARRIGARRANG: SEA COUNTRY EXHIBITION.

Opposite Yuin man Dwayne BannonHarrison honouring Guruwil (whale) at Callala Bay (NSW) during the development of Garrigarrang. Photo by James Horan.

Right Gumbaynggirr woman Chels Marshall connected to Country. Artwork © Caz Nowaczyk.

‘Look after Country and Country will look after you.’ This Ancestral Law handed down through the generations teaches us to harvest resources sustainably, to maintain biodiversity, protect the rights of all species and care for sacred sites.

While many cultural practices are the right and responsibility of Aboriginal custodians alone, there are many wisdoms and teachings that can be embraced by everyone.

Elders, communities and Country are crying out for more people to listen, learn and respect the Ancestral Laws.

In the local Sydney Aboriginal language, the concept is ngara – to listen to Elders, hear what Country is saying and think how our actions will impact all living things.

Ngara is the path to knowledge, wisdom and survival.

JOURNEY

‘Where do I begin?’ I hear you ask. The Museum’s new exhibition Garrigarrang: Sea Country is a great place to start or continue your journey of ngara. Elders, makers and communities from many Sea Countries around Australia are represented through stories, songs, artwork, films, and cultural and scientific knowledge and technologies.

Hosted on the traditional lands of the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation, Garrigarrang is a meeting place for sharing and learning, for all peoples, all ages, all communities.

As you meander through the exhibition surrounded by the teal greens and silvery blues of the ocean, exploring the unique offerings at each bay and peninsula, ngara awakens the senses, helping you listen with mind, heart and spirit.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

CONNECTIONS

Gumbaynggirr woman Chels Marshall also explores the intimate and interconnected relationships of Country through her installation ‘People of the Sea’. Created with contributions from neighbouring groups and designed to reflect the molecular structure of DNA, Chels explains: With Aboriginal clans and groups, the connection to the ocean or saltwater is something that happens on a molecular DNA level, is intrinsically entwined, living in, on and with saltwater as a major component of your spiritual, cultural, ecological and intellectual existence.

Aboriginal people have always been a component of Sea Country. This connection extends back for hundreds, thousands of generations. Many coastal people believe the saltwater runs through their veins and they are part of the ocean and it is a part of them.

All over Australia, Elders and communities are sharing and teaching cultural knowledge with the broader community in the hope that more people, more leaders and more industries will listen, hear, think and act. Colonisation, globalisation, pollution, greed and climate change all place huge pressure on Sea Countries and it is only through combined effort that we can face the challenges and plan well for the future.

Indeed one of Garrigarrang’s main themes, baranyi yagu barrabugu (yesterday, today, tomorrow), is founded on Ancestral Laws that encourage decisions to be made and actions to be governed for the future generations of many species.

Contemporary Western dichotomies between spirituality and science offer only limited understanding of Indigenous Countries, peoples and cultures. Compare these to Auntie Julie Freeman’s ‘Narawarn and the coming of the Sea’, a story in the exhibition handed down from her Dharawal grandmothers, which demonstrates the richness of scientific, historical, cultural and spiritual knowledge embedded in Aboriginal Creation stories.

Listening to the story of Narawarn and his older brother Arrilla, one learns of phenomena some might label ‘scientific’: all life comes from the ocean; there is a direct ecological relationship between the sky and the sea; and every few thousand years the east coast of Australia is hit by a tsunami.

But these elements are only part of a much bigger picture that also includes Law and punishment; the importance of plants and animals; the human emotions of love, devotion, regret and sadness; and the eternal connections between kanoona (sky) and the earth.

For me personally, it is Auntie Julie’s voice resonating deeply through the core of my spirit that awakens compassion and understanding. Drawing on generations of teachers, a gifted storyteller can call up, dig down and reel in an audience until they are listening not only with their ears, but also with mind, heart and spirit. As her film draws to an end, Auntie Julie recalls: And my old Nan used to say ‘every living thing Julie has to come from the salty tears of Narawarn. All life – including ourselves. Bin gee larng in the belly of the mothers – the recipe is salty tears of Narawarn’.

Baru, a sculpture by Djambawa Marawili, shown in the Garrigarrang: Sea Country exhibition.

Photo by Stuart Humphreys.

Artist Djambawa Marawili’s totemic sculpture Baru (crocodile), representing a sacred offshore site, Dhakalmayi, is a commanding presence in the exhibition. Art, song, ceremony and design can be both a record and an incantation of Creation Stories, totemic relationships and Ancestral Laws upheld for thousands of generations.

As Djambawa says: ‘I want people to look at my paintings and recognise our Law’.

Aboriginal Elders and other dignitaries at the launch of Garrigarrang: Sea Country in December 2014 standing in front of ‘People of the Sea’, an installation by Chels Marshall.

Left to right: Uncle Noel Butler (Buduwang, NSW); Uncle Sid Bruce Short Joe (Pormpuraaw, Qld); NSW Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Victor Dominello MP; Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison (Yuin, NSW); Aunty Jeanie Holroyd (Pormpuraaw, Qld); Kim McKay, Executive Director & CEO, Australian Museum. Photo by James Morgan.

The power of cultural artworks is shown by the Yolengu people from Blue Mud Bay, who presented Ancestral paintings as ‘title deeds’ during their landmark fight for sea rights at the High Court of Australia. In 2008 the court found that the water coming over Aboriginal land should not be treated differently from the land itself. Around 80 per cent of coastal waters between the low and high tide mark in the Northern Territory are now managed by following both Ancestral Law and Australian law.

The recognition of traditional sea rights is a win for Indigenous peoples, it is a win for sustainable marine environments, and it is a win for future generations. This significant step is part of a long journey that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are yet to walk together.

In Garrigarrang, everybody is welcome to learn more about following the footsteps of those who have come before us, to follow ngara – the path to knowledge, wisdom and survival – not just of an individual human being, or the human species, but the survival of Countries.

AMANDA JANE REYNOLDS, CURATOR, STELLA STORIES

This story is dedicated to my co-curator Laura McBride and her new baby McKenzie Walker who lived and breathed Garrigarrang while in the womb.

We all have a place in this world and the oceans are just like the wombs of our mothers – they are our first home and the longtime ago birthplace of all living things.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

FROM THE COLLECTION

A BRIDGE BETWEEN

two cultures SOME STUNNING PIECES OF SHELLWORK

BY ABORIGINAL ARTISTS ESME TIMBERY AND MARILYN TIMBERY RUSSELL FEATURE IN THE MUSEUM’S LATEST INDIGENOUS EXHIBITION, GARRIGARRANG: SEA COUNTRY, WRITES SCOTT MITCHELL.

Left Anon. The March of Progress, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1932.

Among the many triumphal images celebrating the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932 was this illustration in the Sydney Morning Herald titled ‘The March of Progress’. Above the new bridge, ‘a symbol for generations to come’, is a ghostly procession from the past: Aborigines lead a group of redcoats, gold diggers and squatters marching off the stage into history as a cruise ship emerges to mark Australia’s place in the modern world.

But not all of the ‘ghosts’ had quite marched off the stage. Present in the crowd at the bridge’s opening ceremony was a contingent from the Aboriginal community of La Perouse on Sydney’s Botany Bay. Impressed with the new structure, some of the residents reportedly returned to La Perouse and carved images of the bridge in the rocks near their homes. Those pictures became

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Opposite left Shellwork Harbour Bridge 2014 by Esme Timbery.

Photo by Stuart Humphreys.

Opposite right Marilyn Russell with one of her shellwork Harbour Bridges.

Photo by Scott Mitchell.

part of a much larger and more ancient suite of rock engravings including pictures of fish and a 12-metre shark. Sadly the rock art at La Perouse has not survived, but the Sydney Harbour Bridge continues to feature in art produced by the community’s Aboriginal artists, including the carved boomerangs and shell models sold to generations of tourists.

SHELLWORK

Models of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, elaborately decorated with shells, are among the signature artworks produced by contemporary La Perouse shellworkers Esme Timbery and her daughter Marylin Russell. Two of these works were recently acquired by the Australian Museum, thanks to a grant from the

Gwendoline A West Bequest fund, for display in Garrigarrang: Sea Country. Esme and Marylin make a range of shellwork objects – boxes, baby slippers, boomerangs, photo frames and even modern icons such as the Opera House – but clearly the bridge holds a special affection for them. According to Esme, born the year before the bridge opened, her inspiration to start making them was her mother Elizabeth. ‘I was scared … the first time I went across as a little girl [but] my mother used to make them. I just got the idea one day that I could do the Harbour Bridge. So I got a piece of cardboard, and I got somebody to mark it out for me, so I cut it out, glued it together … then put the material on, and we shelled it and that was the first Harbour Bridge that I did. It was only a small one.’

It was the start of a lifelong fascination for Esme. Even now in her eighties Esme says ‘I love doing Harbour Bridges. I’d sit all day and shell the Harbour Bridge. So relaxing.’

Marylin learned to make shellwork models of the bridge the same way, by watching her mother as a child. Marylin recalls that on her first attempt she made ‘. . . a little bridge, wasn’t as good as Mum’s, but then I said I keep trying and trying.’ Today Marylin finds her bridges are popular with collectors: ‘They are demanding them. A lot of people love the Harbour Bridge.’ It’s a demand Marylin is happy to fill: ‘… my favourite object is the Harbour Bridge. It’s beautiful.’

For Esme and Marylin, making shell objects is part of a long family and cultural tradition. Esme’s great grandmother was a celebrated nineteenth century La Perouse artist known as Queen Emma Timbery. Queen Emma’s shell objects, which included baskets, jewellery boxes and baby slippers, were regularly shown at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and were included in a London exhibition of Australian crafts in 1910. Esme speaks of Queen Emma as a leader in the La Perouse Aboriginal community, a talented healer, artist and teacher who passed on her skills to the next generation of women among whom ‘… it’s gone on and on and on, family to family’.

IRONY

For earlier generations of La Perouse Aboriginal women, shellwork was a way to make badly needed extra income, but speaking to Esme and Marylin today there is a clear sense that their work intentionally celebrates their Aboriginal heritage. According to Marylin, ‘The thing that is most dearest, nearest to us is to keep this culture alive, because it goes back to generations and generations … it comes from a lot of beautiful ladies that sat together, worked together, ate together, they sorted shells together’.

She speaks of her sense of connection with the people who made the ancient shell middens and shell fishhooks scattered around Sydney’s shores. ‘Makes you really proud of what you do … our dear old men that made fishhooks … you know they were recycling, like us, with the shells’.

Here is a marvellous irony: the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of Australia’s most potent symbols of modernity, has been adopted

by Aboriginal artists with direct family and cultural links to the ancient Indigenous peoples who gathered shells on Sydney’s beaches. But then almost in the shadow of the bridge at Balls Head is a cave with two ancient Aboriginal hand stencils still visible on the wall. It seems the Aborigines parading over the bridge in the 1932 ‘March of Progress’ were not leaving the stage of history at all. Instead they are getting ready to walk off to one side, to mingle with the cheering crowds on the Harbour foreshore and help create new symbols for Sydney’s generations to come.

DR SCOTT MITCHELL, HEAD, CULTURE, CONSERVATION AND CONSULTING

Further reading P Irish, 2011. Hidden in plain view – the Sydney Aboriginal Historical Places Project.

Technical Reports of the Australian Museum, Online, 23: 31–44.

M Nugent, 2006. Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet. Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

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SCIENCE

SYDNEY’S

WHAT’S AROUND SYDNEY?

freshwater fishes

LESS WELL KNOWN THAN THEIR MARINE COUSINS, SYDNEY’S FRESHWATER FISHES HAVE SURVIVED POLLUTION, INTRODUCED SPECIES AND RIVER REGULATION, SAYS THE MUSEUM’S SALLY READER.

Although Australian freshwater fishes may not be as readily recognisable as the better-known terrestrial fauna, each species is unique. Sadly most people have had little or no interaction with our native freshwater fish species and are probably more familiar with the introduced species such as trout, perch and carp or the exotic fishes found in pet shops.

Habitat changes and overfishing have reduced populations of the Australian Bass, Maquaria novemaculeata, in the Sydney region. It grows to 600 mm. Photo © Gunther Schmida.

Many people have had little or no interaction with our native freshwater fish species and are probably more familiar with introduced species such as trout, perch and carp.

Australia’s freshwater fish fauna is quite small (about 300 species) compared to the wealth of marine fishes inhabiting Australian seas (over 4000 species), but 70 per cent of these freshwater species are endemic (found exclusively in Australia).

There are also 22 introduced species found in freshwater, mostly confined to the southern states.

Around Sydney, the freshwater fish fauna is dominated by gudgeons (6 species), galaxiids (3 species) and freshwater basses and cods (2–3 species). Also present are the Pacific Blue Eye, Pseudomugil signifer; the venomous Bullrout, Notesthes robusta; Australian Smelt, Retropinna semoni; and the Freshwater Herring, Potamalosa richmondia, as well as the two eels and a number of introduced species (most notably Eastern Gambusia or Mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki).

STREAMS

The habitat for Sydney’s freshwater fishes is characterised by short coastal streams and rivers flowing from the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

These rivers have high annual discharges and erratic flows, as is typical for much of south-eastern Australia. The upper reaches of these streams are relatively shallow and fast-flowing, slowing through the widening valleys onto the coastal plain.

Sydney’s freshwater streams and lakes are home to just 18 of these native species, with a further 5 or 6 introduced species.

The extensive estuaries and dune lakes of coastal Sydney are essentially marine in nature and form arbitrary boundaries between fresh and marine habitats for many species.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Page 18

Some fish species need both fresh and marine habitats. Examples are the two species of eel found in Sydney, the Southern Shortfin Eel, Anguilla australis, and Longfin Eel, Anguilla reinhardtii.

Both species migrate more than 1600 kilometres to the Coral Sea to spawn.

Their young travel on the East Australian Current to Sydney where they enter freshwater en masse as juvenile eels (elvers).

On the other hand the Climbing Galaxias, Galaxias brevipinnis, lives and spawns in freshwater, but the newly hatched young are swept downstream and out to sea where they remain for a few months before returning to coastal streams as juveniles.

None of the native fishes found in the Sydney region have any current commercial fishery value, though the larger Australian Bass, Macquaria novemaculeata, and Macquarie Perch, Macquaria australasica, were once important as subsistence and angling species. Population sizes of these species are now dwindling due to overfishing, habitat alteration and the proliferation of barriers such as dams and weirs which affect natural spawning cues and impede migration.

Within the Sydney region, pockets of aquatic wilderness still exist; however, damaging land practices, such as clearing streamside vegetation and damming rivers and streams, from the earliest days of colonisation to the present, have destroyed or degraded much freshwater fish habitat.

Not surprisingly, these areas of degraded habitat are often where the introduced species thrive.

Eastern Gambusia, introduced to Australia in the 1920s to control mosquitos, now occurs in plague proportions. It flourishes in warm, still water with low oxygen levels and even in areas of high salinity.

Gambusia ‘give birth’ to well-developed live young up to nine times a year, giving them a major survival advantage over native species that breed less frequently and release eggs which are subsequently fertilised by the male. This ‘reproductive advantage’, along with its aggressive (finnipping) and competitive appetite for invertebrates and juvenile fishes, has led to a wide distribution for Gambusia.

Despite these threats there are still plenty of native fishes surviving in the Sydney region (even if their populations are not always healthy), and there have been no extinctions recorded so far.

SALLY READER, TECHNICAL OFFICER, ICHTHYOLOGY

WEBLINK Find out more about Australian freshwater fishes at australianmuseum.net.au/fishes

KNOWLEDGE

The Australian Museum Fish Collection has many specimens of freshwater fishes from the Sydney region, collected by staff and other researchers over the years.

Until the early 1900s the taxonomy of our freshwater fishes largely remained the domain of European naturalists. Fishes were assigned common names, often due to a fanciful resemblance to their Northern Hemisphere namesakes, which bore no relation to their actual unique Australian taxonomic standing.

Further reading GR Allen SH Midgley & M Allen, 2002. Field Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Australia. Western Australian Museum.

P Humphries K Walker (eds), 2013. Ecology of Australian Freshwater Fishes. CSIRO Publishing.

JS Lake, 1976. Freshwater Fishes and Rivers of Australia. Nelson.

JR Merrick & GE Schmida, 1984. Australian Freshwater Fishes. Biology and Management. John R Merrick.

From top The introduced Eastern Gambusia, Gambusia holbrooki, is a noxious pest of Australia’s waterways. The female (left) grows to 60 mm, nearly twice the length of the male.

Photo © Sascha Schulz.

Cox’s Gudgeon, Gobiomorphus coxi, is typically 120 mm in length with some specimens to 190 mm.

Photo © Sascha Schulz.

The Pacific Blue Eye, Pseudomugil signifer, occurs in coastal streams along the eastern coast of Australia. It grows to 70 mm. Photo © Robert McCormack.

The Striped Gudgeon, Gobiomorphus australis, grows to 180 mm and occurs in coastal streams of southern Queensland, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.

Photo © Robert McCormack.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

SCIENCE BYTES Autumn/Winter 2015

re VIEW SPRINTER AND SPRUMMER AUSTRALIA’S CHANGING SEASONS

A GUIDE TO THE COCKROACHES OF AUSTRALIA

by Tim Entwisle CSIRO Publishing, 2014

by David Rentz CSIRO Publishing, 2014

Australia has long been a country at odds with the European idea of the seasons. I can remember as a child wondering what a cold summer with ice and snow was all about, and why those poor people in Europe had to put up with it at Christmas time. Even the ideas of spring and autumn were a bit weird as some Australian plants start to flower in winter, with others in autumn and summer, and the autumnal colours we were told about rarely appear in this country. The various Aboriginal seasonal calendars made more sense but tended to be regional, with each tribal area having different seasonal ‘markers’ and seasons.

Cockroaches have walked (and flown) the Earth little-changed since the days before the dinosaurs, yet our knowledge of cockroaches is relatively poor. Australia has a wealth of fascinating, and often colourful, native cockroach species, but mention the word ‘cockroach’ to most people and they only think about fast-moving pests hiding under the fridge!

Several books and articles have mentioned this problem over the years but the latest is perhaps the most thoroughly thought-out and most detailed: Tim Entwisle’s Sprinter and Sprummer.

This excellent book outlines the diversity of genera and species in Australia but provides details of only a selection, due to the large number of cockroach species found in Australia. We have burrowers and tree-dwellers, day species and night species, short-lived and long-lived, those which eat dead leaves and those which eat flowers, and, perhaps some of the most interesting of all, cave-dwelling species with varying degrees of eye and colour loss.

Tim, who is Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, outlines the case for recognising five seasons for our climate: summer, autumn and winter, plus two new ones: sprinter (the transition between winter and spring) and sprummer (the transition between spring and summer).

Tim argues why this system is better suited to Australia than the ‘Vivaldi’ model. You may disagree with Tim or think there is a better model, but isn’t it better that they reflect actual weather patterns, rather than forcing our climate into a jacket of seasons that just doesn’t fit? Read Tim’s wellpresented book and decide for yourself!

Don’t miss Tim Entwisle’s Night Talk at the Museum.

Details page 36.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Page 20

liftout for young scientists ACTIVITIES

make a worm farm what’s in soil?

INTERVIEW

snail scientist frank köhler COLLECTOR’S CARD

garden snail INFO

carla’s blog science festival

Only a few cockroach species are pests which have travelled the globe as ‘stowaways’ with people. Most native species would probably starve inside a house because of their more specialised diets.

The book is peppered with colour photos and also includes a chapter entitled ‘Cockroach Personalities’, with black-andwhite images of many cockroach researchers.

Cockroaches will appeal to entomologists, wildlife researchers, bushwalkers and field naturalists, but I would also recommend it to anyone who is curious to learn a little more about this ancient order of fascinating insects.

MARTYN ROBINSON

SOIL’S ALIVE

MAKE A WORM FARM

WHAT’S IN SOIL? Soil is made up of a mixture of sand, silt, clay and organic material (dead plants and animals). Soils from different places vary in the amount of each component they contain.

CARLA’S BLOG Hi, I’m Carla the Echidna, and this issue of Xplorer is all about soil and the mini-beasts that live in it.

My favourite food is ants and termites. They build large nests using soil. I break the nests open with my claws and catch them with my long, sticky tongue as they run around. I also get to eat quite a lot of soil. I don’t mind the taste, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re an echidna, too.

What’s your favourite food?

FUN FACT

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Earthworms live underground, burrowing deeply into the soil. They drag food scraps (such as decaying leaf litter) into their burrows as they feed. This mixes nutrients into the soil for plants and allows air and rainwater to reach plant roots.

You will need an empty 2-litre plastic bottle, scissors, some sticky tape, a piece of dark A3-sized construction paper, small rocks or gravel, soil, sand, food scraps (fruit and vegetable, not meat) and worms (from your garden after rain).

1 Get an older person to help cut the top off the bottle so you have plenty of room to put rocks and sand in (you will sticky tape it back on later). Mind the edges!

They can be sharp; if so, wrap them with tape.

Be Scientist for a Day at the Museum next school holidays.

You’ll go behind the scenes at the Museum and join other young minds to unlock the secrets of the world around us.

The bottom layer is the sand part of the soil. Small pebbles or gravel may also be present. Sand particles and gravel are the largest and heaviest component of soil so they sink fastest.

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The silt layer sits on top of the sand. Silt is made up of very fine sand, large clay particles and other material.

The top layer is the clay layer, made up of the least dense particles.

The water above the sediment will probably appear murky because it now contains dissolved organic material from the soil. It may also have floating bits on top that haven’t dissolved or broken down yet.

Now measure the height of each layer using a ruler and work out the relative percentages of material in your soil sample and compare it with other samples (1 cm = 10% of the total).

Record your results on a pie chart and compare results for different soils.

Each issue of Xplorer includes a collector’s card for you to cut out and keep!

31 r’s card

collecto

5 Re-seal the top of the bottle with sticky tape.

6 Wrap the paper around the bottle to block out the light.

4

Enjoy your pet worms! Remove the paper cylinder to see the worms at work as they bring food into their burrows.

Remember to keep the soil moist and add a few choppedup scraps to the soil surface every day or two.

3 5

g Undissolved Organic Material Water + Dissolved

g Organic Material

6 7 8

g Clay g Silt

9 10

LOSE YOUR SENSES Find out if your sense of smell beats T. rex’s.

WHEN 23 or 24 September

Half-fill your jar with soil (to 5 cm) and then add clean water (to 10 cm). Put the lid on the jar and shake to combine, then leave the jar to sit undisturbed for one hour. The soil will settle and you will see different layers separating.

2

INTO THE WILD Explore the wild with us and learn about the many environments that we find animals living in.

WHEN 8 or 9 July

4 Pour in a few centimetres of sand and then a layer of soil, adding worms and food scraps as you go. Repeat until your bottle is about three quarters full.

Australian Museum

0 CM 1

OCEAN SECRETS Delve into the ocean depths and discover the best-kept secrets of Australia’s waters.

WHEN 1 or 2 July

3 Place gravel at the bottom of the bottle for drainage.

2015

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You will need: • soil • water • a jar (around 10–15 cm tall) • a ruler

Wouldn’t it be great to see into their underground world? Now you can!

2 Punch air holes in the top and drainage holes in the bottom.

SCIENTIST FOR A DAY

Try this experiment with soil samples from different areas to see how they compare.

LIFT STAPLES TO REMOVE XPLORER

On the cover Collage and photo by Melanie Feddersen.

Earthworms help create healthy soil for plants.

Adapted from letkidscreate.blogspot.com.au.

g Sand

Garden

Snail

SCIENCE REPORTER FOR A DAY

XPLANATIONS Send your query to the Search & Discover team, email sand@austmus.gov.au

search

JAMES: Soil is an important habitat for lots of snails that live on land and burrow into the soil. What sort of soil makes good snail habitat?

FRANK: That’s a very good question. There is good snail soil, or perhaps we should say good microhabitats for snails. Snails don’t like it dry; they need to maintain moisture levels in their body to protect themselves from drying out. The perfect snail soil would be in a protected place, in the shade, with a deep layer of humus and leaf litter to stop the water in the soil from evaporating too quickly.

ON THE SNAIL TRAIL Snails are everywhere, and there’s so much to learn about them, as Museum snail expert Dr Frank Köhler reveals to James O’Hanlon.

JAMES: How did you become a snail expert? Did you have a childhood fascination with snails?

FRANK: I sometimes wonder that myself! I wasn’t particularly interested in snails as a kid, but I was very much interested in animals in general. I spent a lot of my spare time in the forest and we had all sorts of pets at home – wild dogs, birds, rabbits, you name it! At university I got a scholarship to start a PhD and my supervisor told me it would be a good idea to work on snails, so I started studying freshwater snails in South-East Asia.

DISCOVER

JAMES: What research projects are you working on right now?

FRANK: I am studying desert snails in arid Australia. They are tough guys and are able to survive years of drought. If it rains they become active for a couple of days to feed and mate.

Before it dries out they bury themselves into the soil where it is still soft and moist. They can bury themselves as deep as half a metre. Once they are buried they basically go into hibernation where they can survive dormant for months or years waiting for rain again.

IT’S A QUIRK OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE THAT ‘GRUB’ CAN MEAN BOTH FOOD AND THE LARVA OF CERTAIN INSECTS. BUT THESE TWO MEANINGS HAPPILY COINCIDE WHEN IT COMES TO THE WITCHETTY GRUB.

WEBLINK Hear the whole podcast of this interview at australianmuseum.net.au/audio/snail-science

Drs James Hanlon (left) and Frank Köhler. Photo by Steve Vogel.

THIS EDITION OF XPLORER COMPILED BY APRIL MCNEE AND THE SCIENCE COMMUNICATION TEAM

Garden Sn

ail

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FUN FACTS

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The Witchetty grub is one of the most famous items on the Aboriginal bush tucker menu. Similar grubs are found across Australia, but are they true Witchetty grubs?

for any fat, white, wood-boring grub, including those of other wood moths (Cossidae), swift moths (Hepialidae) and even longicorn beetles (Cerambycidae) in eastern Australia.

GRUB ANYONE?

If you have the right species of tree, you can find your own grub(s). Simply locate a pile of frass (insect droppings) and sawdust at the base of a tree, then look up to find the grub’s hidden entrance, a hole in the trunk.

Fish around in the hole to extract the grub and there’s a nutritious lunch right there.

The Witchetty grub is the larval stage (caterpillar) of a large cossid wood moth, Endoxyla leucomochla, and was called ‘witjuri’ by the Adnyamathanha people of South Australia’s Central Desert.

A snail’s ‘tongue’ (radula), viewed with the scanning electron microscope, from a newly discovered species found only in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, Amplirhagada lindsayae. Scale bar is 0.1 millimetres. SEM by Sue Lindsay.

The larva eats into the woody roots of the Witchetty bush, Acacia kempeana, and feeds on the root sap. Aboriginal women and children dig around the roots of the plant to find the grubs, which are a rich source of protein.

To make things a little confusing, people have come to use the name Witchetty

Personally, I find the thought of eating them revolting, but don’t let me stop you.

Snack away.

DAVID BOCK, COORDINATOR, SEARCH & DISCOVER

WEBLINK Find out more about Witchetty grubs at australianmuseum.net.au/Witchetty-grubs

Page 19

Top The Witchetty grub is the larval stage (caterpillar) of a cossid (wood) moth, Endoxyla leucomochla. Photo © Sam Wiggington.

Left The adult Witchetty Moth, Endoxyla leucomochla, lacks functional feeding organs. It lives for only a few days on fat reserves, breeding and then dying. Photo by Len Willan/ CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences.

Above After pupating the wood moth emerges from its woody home as an adult moth, leaving behind its protective skin.

Photo by Alex Hegedus.

Search & Discover is the Museum’s hands-on mini-museum packed with real specimens and resources, from computers and microscopes to books and magazines.

Bring in your questions or email them to us at sand@austmus.gov.au.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

IN YOUR BACKYARD

• with martyn robinson

Opposite This photo of a young Fairy Penguin, Eudyptula minor, is from a glass plate negative by photographer Harry Burrell, 1915 at Maroubra, NSW. Australian Museum Archives

MARTYN ROBINSON IS THE MUSEUM’S RESIDENT NATURALIST

PENGUIN MOULT

Just as mammals shed their old worn hair and skin (the skin is what dandruff and most household dust is made of!), and reptiles shed their scales as they grow, so birds must shed their old, worn feathers and replace them by growing new ones, either for impending breeding seasons or just plain maintenance.

Most birds do this in stages so they still have enough feathers to keep warm, to flee from predators or find prey, but for some this isn’t really possible, especially if you have waterproof feathers and live in cold water!

Penguins have problems when it comes to moulting. A partially complete, waterproof warming coat of feathers isn’t much good in the water if you are going to be losing your body warmth from the naked partly feathered areas!

The Heath Frog, Litoria littlejohni, grows to 6 cm or so and lives in damp forested gullies in southeastern New South Wales. Photo © Marion Anstis.

SEASONAL SYMPHONY

is where your food is you starve! So you need to get your moult over as quickly as possible before you are too weak to recover (or even die as a result).

Australia’s only mainland species of penguin, the Little or Fairy Penguin, Eudyptula minor, can get through its entire moult in only 17 days – which is pretty quick to be able to grow an entire new coat of feathers.

Mind you, to see the penguins stuck on land looking like they have a strange case of mange, it must seem a very long time.

But timing is everything: the moult takes place between February and April when the weather is comparatively mild, neither too hot nor too cold (yes, the feathers insulate against heat as well as cold).

So what do you do? Well you don’t go in the water for a start, and because that

This period is also after the warm ‘sprummer’* period when there were lots of fish and squid around and a penguin could fatten up and put on enough weight

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Page 20

to survive a fast of 17 days relatively easily.

It is also after the breeding season, so the parent birds can raise their chicks and still have time to moult their old, thoroughly worn-out feathers after this gruelling task before winter sets in.

With the change of seasons, it is usually the animals or plants we can see that trigger the claim that the season in question has finally arrived (the first spring flowers, the first blowfly of summer etc.), but sounds too can provide cues.

Nevertheless it is a strain and some will die if their condition or circumstances aren’t in their favour – but natural selection lets only those which survive these ‘life hurdles’ breed and maintain the species.

Mostly these sights and sounds are for the warmer months, the first Koel of spring being a prime contender. But the cooler seasons have their harbingers too.

For example, Koels gather in March in small noisy flocks to make a variety of strange shrieks and warbles (but rarely the springtime Koel call) before migrating northwards to New Guinea and beyond.

After that, there’s comparative silence until they return the following September or October.

So if you are used to seeing penguins when you are around the water but then find them missing for a few days, check the calendar: it might be time to grow their new tuxedos! *see review, page 18

Brushtail possums and their smaller relatives the ringtails are among the noisiest backyard residents, with shrieks

and gurgles or bird-like twitters (in the case of ringtails) during the night in both spring and autumn. They have two breeding seasons: those individuals which don’t breed in spring can still procreate once summer ends, but then face a harsher season for rearing their young. The benefit of this strategy is that the young (if they survive) become independent at a time when the weather is milder and food more plentiful.

Some frog species time their breeding cycles to the off season (autumn/winter) and in that way their young avoid competing with the more numerous warmseason breeders. And the puddles last longer in the cooler weather. Listen out for the Heath Frog, Litoria littlejohni, which sounds like a low pitched ‘cree cree cree’ and the brown froglets in the genus Crinia, which can call at other times but reach a

Page 21

breeding frenzy in the shallow soaks and puddles in the cooler months.

As for summer’s sound indicators you are spoilt for choice – whether it’s the subtle buzz of the first blowfly, the roar of the first cicada chorus or the clunk of the beetles hitting the window panes at night, there are lots of sounds to tell you summer has arrived.

WEBLINK Listen to the Heath Frog at frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Litoria/littlejohni

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

SCIENCE

ROCK OF SURPRISES

SOME ANIMALS CAN LIVE IN UNLIKELY PLACES, LIKE RAIN-FILLED PUDDLES ON MOUNTAIN TOPS. BUT HOW DO THEY SURVIVE THERE?

You wouldn’t normally look for wetlands on mountain tops unless, like me, you study rockholes in granite.

Such waterbodies, properly called pan gnammas, are often found on mountains and are shaped like giant petri dishes – generally up to 5 metres in diameter and 20 centimetres deep.

They form when domed granite rots along horizontal laminations caused by rock expansion and contraction, due to diurnal heating and cooling. When full of rainwater they are like giant aquaria and support all sorts of interesting animals.

CLAM SHRIMP

I’m in the midst of a long-term study of gnammas across Australia, particularly the taxonomy of the iconic clam shrimp which is one of the invertebrates that can survive in these extreme habitats.

But I had a problem – to make this a thorough biogeographic study I needed more sites. My field book had no sites listed between Bald Rock in northern NSW and Mt Pilot in northern Victoria, and I needed a location in between.

Brian Timms sampling the aquatic fauna of a pan gnamma, with the township of Moonbi in the background. Photo

by Warwick Schofield © Brian Timms.

A chance encounter with a geologist in a book shop in Uralla (NSW) last year changed all that. The geologist lives in the Moonbi Ranges north of Tamworth, and he told me of a domed mountain with gnammas near his property. So I visited him in early March, after heavy rain, and he

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Page 22

Far left Female clam shrimp, Eulimnadia sp., (6–7 mm) with eggs. Each gnamma has its own species of clam shrimp. The eggs remain in the dried sediments and hatch on reflooding. Photo

by Sue Lindsay Left The resting egg of a clam shrimp. Scanning electron micrograph by Sue Lindsay.

walked me up mountains and down valleys for almost two hours until we reached the domed rock. To scale its summit we had to shin four metres up a tree – a daunting task for a retiree like myself.

On top, we were rewarded with six gnammas and an inspiring view down to the township of Moonbi. Two held water with clam shrimps, a few insects and active planarians. I had hit the jackpot. I took home some mud from a dried pool to gently dry it further in the oven and then added rainwater to see what might emerge from the sediments.

STRATEGIES

I returned to the site in early April after more rain, this time in a 4WD, which took me closer to the rock, but I still had to negotiate the tree. The gnammas were even better than last month: all six were full of water. Clam shrimps populated two pools, and most had mosquito larvae, midges, sandfly larvae, mayflies, young damsels, juvenile ostracods, planarians and a few adult bugs and beetles.

Meanwhile at home, from the sediments had emerged not only clam shrimps, but something truly surprising: midges and sandflies. As there was no way adults could have laid eggs in my aquarium, these must have hatched from the sediments, so I had two new cases of cryptobiosis.

Animals have different strategies for surviving in temporary habitats like these

pools. As the pool dries, some insect larvae can dehydrate and survive in suspended animation until water returns. I’ve seen this phenomenon in Western Australian desert gnammas but did not expect it in the more benign east coast gnammas.

Most insects, such as mosquitos, mayflies and damselflies, survive the dry period in the adult stage and then lay eggs when the pool is inundated again. Other types of invertebrate survive the dry as eggs or cysts, including all the crustaceans and planarians – the main predators of the clam shrimp.

It was these eggs that were now hatching in my aquarium.

After 50 days, it held adult ostracods and myriad tiny water fleas (chydorid cladocerans) – the same array of species I found in nature on my next field trip to the Moonbi Ranges in May, except that the clam shrimps had disappeared. The damsels were growing well on a diet of mosquito larvae, the mayflies were into a second generation, and various juvenile bugs and beetles had joined the community. The midges and sandflies were breeding, and frogs had somehow climbed the rock and left a legacy of small tadpoles, but only in the deeper, longer-lasting pools.

I also managed to solve the tree problem by installing a ladder nearby, making my workplace health and safety supervisor (my wife) much happier.

Page 23

DAMSELS AND DRAGONS

Return trips in June and July revealed nothing extra, just the damsels and dragons getting bigger on a diet of mosquito larvae and ostracods. The boatmen had matured and a few mayflies persisted. In the muddy gnammas the cryptobiotic midge larvae persisted, not needing their special biological adaptations while there was enough rain to keep water in the pools.

In between field trips, I studied specimens of the Moonbi clam shrimp using the Museum’s scanning electron microscope (with Technical Officer Sue Lindsay’s help) and found they are a new species of Eulimnadia. In fact, each gnamma district of Australia – Queensland’s Granite Belt, central Victoria, South Australia, southern and northwest Western Australia, and Uluru – has its own distinct species of clam shrimp.

I will continue to study these gnammas while they hold water. It is a propitious year for regular rainfall, so I’m lucky. Based on my studies elsewhere I can expect more changes to occur in the gnammas as the water persists for longer.

But I know my beloved clam shrimp will not return until the mud – with its resting eggs – has been baked dry and reflooded, which might not be for a year or more.

DR BRIAN TIMMS, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

foundation

The islands we visited, at the southern end of French Polynesia, are not hot and tropical like those further north. But why were we there anyway, collecting marine invertebrates and fishes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

DIVERSITY

Four staff from the Australian Museum – myself, Steve Keable, Mark McGrouther and Sally Reader – departed in mid-September 2014 for the Austral and Gambier islands, some 7000 kilometres northeast of Sydney.

EXPEDITION TO

SOUTHERN FRENCH POLYNESIA OUR WORK COLLEAGUES JOKED ABOUT OUR ‘PACIFIC HOLIDAY’, BUT OUR EXPERIENCE OF SOUTHERN FRENCH POLYNESIA WAS FAR FROM GRASS SKIRTS, SUNTANS AND EVENING COCKTAILS.

Our mission was to collect marine specimens and fill gaps in our knowledge about the biodiversity of the region. We joined a team of scientists from the Auckland Museum and Pew Charitable Trusts aboard RV Braveheart to survey the shallow water biota of these remote volcanic islands.

French Polynesia consists of 118 volcanic and low coral reef islands over an area of 5 million square kilometres. With diverse geologic histories and ages, the islands have many varied habitats, often with unique faunal compositions.

Rapa Island, where we spent most of our time, is an example of a younger island formed by volcanic activity around 5 million years ago. Covering around 35 square kilometres, its horseshoe shape reveals its origin as a breached caldera and its outer coast rises abruptly from the sea towards dramatic jagged peaks – products of erosion around the caldera rim.

Rapa has coral reef beds but no lagoon or barrier reef, and it is known to have endemic marine species (animals found here but nowhere else). Its marine environment would have been extensively harvested in historic times, though the island today is only sparsely populated with around 400 people.

As I write this, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the freight containing the specimens we collected. We won’t know fully what we have discovered until we have sorted and identified the samples, which will keep us busy for many months. The results will help us understand how these marine communities are connected to those in the adjacent western Pacific and even those of the Northern Hemisphere.

The ‘fish people’ have a better idea of what they collected and could identify many species on board. But the same is generally not true for invertebrates, which cover many phyla and often require detailed microscopic examination, as well as extensive literature and expertise.

Opposite RV Braveheart docked at Rapa Island. Note the lack of white sand and palm trees!

Southern French Polynesia

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Page 24

Top Dr Steve Keable processing samples on board the RV Braveheart.

Middle A nudibranch (sea slug), Bornella irvingi.

This map of Rapa Island dates from 1868.

Illustration by Capt JV Hall.

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Above Octopus, Octopus cf. ornatus.

All photos by Ian Skipworth © Auckland Museum.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

ON THE AGENDA

IN THE FIELD

What could be more appealing than exploring the unknown and making new discoveries? This is undoubtedly the reason that prompts many of us to travel. For me, apart from the stunning scenery of the islands and the underwater seascapes, the personal relationships and camaraderie among the researchers and crew was a real highlight of the trip.

Our Museum team members know each other well and had no doubts about travelling and collecting together. Scuba diving in remote places involves an element of risk – and medical help is a distance away – so trust and care is needed.

In collecting invertebrates I was buddied with Steve (who manages the Museum’s marine invertebrate collection) while Mark (fish collection manager) and Sally were part of the fish team. Steve is an extremely competent collector and diver and after many dives together I believe we understand each other well.

For example, we had no hesitation in agreeing (as discussed with a simple ‘bitey’ hand signal underwater) to head to the surface when we encountered some large sharks in the murky waters of Rapa Harbour!

MAKING A DIFFERENCE The Southern French Polynesia expedition was made possible through an Australian Museum Foundation grant, funded by a bequest from the Patricia Porritt Acquisition Fund.

By making a donation to the Australian Museum Foundation, you are supporting the important work of the Museum.

We would like to acknowledge the support of our many benefactors, corporate partners and research partners in realising this vision. These generous individuals and organisations contribute to scientific research, education and public programs, and assist in the acquisition of items that enrich the Museum’s collections.

REWILDING

Aldabra Giant Tortoise.

Photo © Megan Whittaker.

Madagascar

We especially thank those who generously leave a gift to the Museum in their will – a lasting way to benefit generations to come.

Donations to the Australian Museum and its Foundation are tax deductible. To find out how your support can make a difference to our important work, please contact the Development Branch, phone 02 9320 6216 or email development@austmus.gov.au.

GIANT TORTOISES ONCE PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN MAINTAINING THE FORESTS OF MADAGASCAR, BUT WHEN THEY WERE DRIVEN EXTINCT SOME 750 YEARS AGO, THE FORESTS BEGAN TO SUFFER. NOW A BOLD PLAN TO REINTRODUCE THE GIANT

The crew of the Braveheart kept us safe and we had complete trust in their ability, not only to get us to our remote destination in a relatively small boat (39 metres), but also to help us select our diving sites and safe anchorages. Surfacing after every dive we were confident that the tender (the small motorised boat operating from the ‘big boat’) was close by or would quickly motor over to pick us up.

Our cook, Charlie, an excellent chef (‘Spanner Crab Pizza’ and fresh sashimi were among the highlights), also proved to be an excellent collector with an uncanny nose for finding interesting creatures underwater that the rest of us had missed. And our New Zealand teammates were a fabulous bunch.

Living and working with these people with a shared passion for marine animals and beautiful places enabled an instant and easy rapport and lasting bonds developed quickly. We could laugh together about the difficulties of showering in a rocking boat with little to hang on to and cold water from the scuppers sloshing over our legs, or the difficulties of trying to sleep in a large swell, all of which was accepted in good spirits.

I felt enormously privileged to be a part of this expedition and often think I have one of the best jobs in the world.

DR MANDY REID, COLLECTION MANAGER, MALACOLOGY

WEBLINK Read the expedition blogs at australianmuseum.net.au/Southern-French-Polynesia-Expedition-2014

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Processing samples on deck with Mandy Reid (left).

GIANT TORTOISES ONCE PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN MAINTAINING THE FORESTS OF MADAGASCAR BUT WERE DRIVEN EXTINCT ON THE ISLAND SOME 750 YEARS AGO. NOW A BOLD PLAN TO REINTRODUCE THE GIANT TORTOISE IS SET TO RESTORE THESE DIVERSE HABITATS, WRITES OWEN GRIFFITHS.

Leaping lemurs and majestic baobabs are what first spring to mind when one thinks about Madagascar, but it was the diversity of land snails that first attracted me to this western Indian Ocean island in 1975.

Madagascar is teeming with these beautiful, understudied and diverse creatures and it became a favourite destination also for its pristine rainforests, bizarre flora and fauna, and cultural heritage.

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Sadly, over the next 30 years I witnessed the forests and their unique inhabitants vanish as the landscape was transformed into a monotony of fire-scorched hillsides.

Dismayed at this devastation, in 2002 I set up Biodiversity Conservation Madagascar (BCM), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to improving the lives of people and to protecting Madagascar’s remnant natural heritage.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

TORTOISE BREEDING Aldabra giant tortoises mate usually between January and August. Mating is a rough, romance-less affair. There are no courtship rituals. The larger male, which can weigh up to 250 kg, usually seeks out the closest female, clambers onto her shell and proceeds to release guttural calls and thrusts. The female often tries to escape the heavier male pinning her down but the concave underside of the male shell perfectly fits the female’s carapace and also minimises the chances of the male toppling over.

About three months after mating, a gravid (egg-bearing) female will search for a suitable nesting site by turning and excavating the soil with both her front and back legs. Once satisfied with her choice, she then proceeds to urinate and with her legs dig a hole up to 60 centimetres deep.

Urinating helps create a cavity into which she deposits 14–25 oval, white eggs before she gently covers the hole and attempts to disguise the nesting site.

Today, BCM protects 2400 hectares of critically endangered lowland rainforest at Sahafina Reserve and 20,000 hectares of dry hardwood deciduous forest at Beanka Reserve in Western Madagascar. Both sites host a fantastic array of snails, lemurs, birds, reptiles, amphibians, bats and unique floras. We employ local people as guards and conservationists to deter illegal logging and hunting, and our reserves have become sanctuaries for those plants and animals which have disappeared from surrounding areas.

ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS

Yet the richness and spectacular diversity of wildlife at these sites is just a fraction of what once existed there. Extinct elephant birds, pygmy hippos, giant lemurs and giant tortoises all played a major role in shaping Madagascar’s landscape before the arrival of humans. These megaherbivores selected the plant communities through activities such as seed dispersal, grazing, browsing, trampling and digging. And because plants are the building blocks of most ecosystems, they also affected what and how other animals could use these habitats.

Wildfires are a perpetual and increasing threat to the remaining fragmented forests of Madagascar, particularly fire-sensitive forests such as the dry deciduous forest found at Beanka Reserve. More than 97% of Madagascar’s dry deciduous forests have been destroyed by slash and burn agriculture, logging and charcoal production. Once burnt, there is little potential for the forests to regenerate naturally and they are rapidly being replaced by fire-prone grassland savannas with low species diversity.

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Perhaps most influential on Madagascar’s flora were the two species of giant tortoise which until 750 years ago occurred in huge densities in the south, west and centre of the island, from coastal habitats to the central highlands. Giant tortoises consume large volumes of flammable vegetation and leaf litter, thus reducing the intensity and frequency of wildfires significantly. The extinction of these ‘ecosystem engineers’ has contributed to habitat degradation here and elsewhere throughout their former ranges.

Top left A male Aldabra Giant Tortoise, Aldabrachelys gigantea, typically weighs 250 kg and reaches 120 cm carapace length. Females are smaller, typically 150 kg.

Photo © Megan Whittaker.

Top right Local guards deter poachers and loggers at Beanka Reserve. Photo © Radosoa Andrianaivoarivelo.

The eggs can take between 3 and 12 months to hatch depending on rainfall and temperature. When we first started breeding tortoises, we used to collect and incubate the eggs, but today we more often let them hatch naturally in the large savanna where the tortoises roam. Not all eggs are fertile and not all hatchlings survive, but with time you can obtain a large number of hatchlings.

Then, it is just a 20-year wait until the young tortoises are old enough to contribute to the next generation!

Above Making baby tortoises.

Photo © Arnaud Meunier.

Below Clutch of tortoise eggs.

The arrows help ensure that their orientation is kept constant as turning or twisting the eggs can kill the developing embryos.

Photo © Christine Griffiths.

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Right A hatchling emerges.

Tortoise eggs can take up to a year to hatch depending on conditions.

Photo © Arnaud Meunier.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

We plan to reintroduce giant tortoises to Beanka in 2016 using captive-bred populations of the Aldabra giant tortoise from the Seychelles. Ancestors of the Aldabra giant tortoises floated 400 km northeast from Madagascar to colonise the coralline atolls of Aldabra, and so translocating them back to Madagascar is classified as a re-introduction according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

We will source the animals from our other conservation reserve, La Vanille Nature Park in Mauritius, 750 km east of Madagascar, where we have a herd of more than a thousand captive adult and juvenile Aldabra giant tortoises bred primarily for other successful habitat restoration projects on the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues.

REWILDING

Aldabra giant tortoises can live for more than 100 years, outliving their owners and making it difficult to track their age.

But after 24 years of breeding, we had built

up a substantial adult population and were able to start rewilding – restoring natural processes by resurrecting missing species – on Mauritius and Rodrigues, both of which once had two species of giant tortoise.

Since 2007, we have introduced nearly 500 Aldabra giant tortoises to our François Leguat Giant Tortoise and Cave Reserve in Rodrigues as ecological replacements for the endemic Rodriguan tortoises, driven extinct over 200 years ago. Without giant tortoises, the seed dispersal of large, fleshy fruits had become restricted, and the native plants were succumbing to the fastergrowing, non-native weeds. Introducing the Aldabra giant tortoise is helping to restore the equilibrium.

Aldabra giant tortoises have relatively few environmental requirements to survive and reproduce. They are essentially low maintenance animals which makes them easy to breed and keep. For instance, tortoises have a very simple social structure, lack maternal care and, from the sub-adult stage, lack native predators, which enables

them to be introduced successfully at a young age and even in small numbers.

They can also be easily removed or fenced should the ecological costs of their introduction begin to outweigh the benefits.

Madagascar is home to five remaining endemic species of tortoise (Radiated, Ploughshare, Spider, Flat-tailed and Bell’s hinged, a Madagascan sub-species), but none of these meet the job description for ecosystem engineers, being either too rare (four appear on the IUCN Red List of threatened species) or too small to be effective large-scale consumers of vegetation and leaf litter. There is also currently no evidence that they ever occurred in Beanka, and introducing them into new areas would not aid in their conservation.

The reintroduction of Aldabra giant tortoises will be the first megafauna reintroduction project in Madagascar, offering hope at a time when the island’s famed biodiversity is in peril. Our project adopts a landscape-scale focus for restoring and protecting these habitats. Working with the local community, we hope to increase awareness of the important role tortoises have in structuring and functioning the ecosystem. We are still finding new species of plants and animals at our Beanka and Sahafina reserves, which only highlights the importance of restoring and protecting the forest, not just for the present, but for the future.

OWEN GRIFFITHS IS A RESEARCH ASSOCIATE AT THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM RESEARCH INSTITUTE

WEBLINK http://www.lavanille-reserve.com/index.php/en/ http://www.tortoisescavereserve-rodrigues.com/en

This herd of giant tortoises in Rodrigues has been bred for rewilding projects over the last 20 years. Photo © David Burney.

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members travel

ADVENTURE SPECIAL INTEREST WORLD JOURNEYS NOW YOU CAN ENJOY EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO THE MUSEUM’S SCIENTIFIC LEADERS AS THEY TAKE YOU TO SOME OF THE PLANET’S UNIQUE WILD DESTINATIONS.

ADVENTURE WORLD AND THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM ARE DELIGHTED TO PRESENT THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF JOURNEYS DESIGNED JUST FOR YOU, THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MEMBER.

Delve into Ancient Wonders, Modern Highlights: South American Astronomy through Chile and Peru for 18 days with David Malin, renowned astronomer and photographer.

Enjoy Wildlife Encounters with Dr Rebecca Johnson, Head of the Australian Centre for Wildlife Genomics, exploring Brazil’s wildlife, animal rehabilitation and nature reserves over 16 days.

Join Dr Jodi Rowley of the Australian Museum Research Institute for Amphibians Adventure, a 14-day journey exploring Cambodia and Vietnam, and see firsthand the amazing amphibians of Vietnam.

Departing 19 October 2015

Departing 7 November 2015

Departing 8 May 2016

Astronomer and photographer David Malin.

Photo courtesy David Malin.

Museum geneticist Dr Rebecca Johnson.

Photo by Stuart Humphreys.

Amphibian expert Dr Jodi Rowley. Photo by Stuart Humphreys.

EXPLORE THE EXTRAORDINARY AND SEE THE WORLD AS YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE. CONTACT ADVENTURE WORLD ON 1300 369 751 OR VISIT ADVENTUREWORLD.COM Australian Museum Members receive a 10% discount off the land package price for all bookings made directly with Adventure World Groups. No other discounts will apply.

Members must provide their membership number at the time of booking.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

PHOTOFEAST

celebrating

50 YEARS OF WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY This stunning image of a bluebottle washed ashore is among the 100 award-winning images in the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which opens at the Museum on 28 March.

The bluebottle image was captured by Matthew Smith from Stanwell Park, NSW – one of two Australian photographers honoured in the international competition. ‘I wanted to pick out the beautiful colouration and detail in the tentacles against the eerie darkness of a stormy morning’, said Matthew. ‘The wild atmosphere adds testament to the lifestyle of this sailor of the open seas.’

Look out for Matthew’s Night Talk later this year (details, page 35). Now in its fiftieth year, Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the most prestigious photography event of its kind, providing a global platform that showcases the diversity and wonder of the natural world.

Launched in 1965 with just 361 entries, today the competition receives almost 42,000 entries from 96 countries, highlighting its enduring appeal. This year, the prize of Wildlife Photographer of the Year was awarded to American photographer Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols for his serene black-and-white image of lions resting with their cubs in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.

Eight year old Carlos Perez Narval was awarded Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his image of a scorpion soaking up the sun near his hometown in Spain.

MICHELLE VAN DONINCK, PUBLICIST

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is co-owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

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Sailing by. Photo by Matthew Smith © Matthew Smith / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

members

night talks

2015 is a big year for your Museum – change is afoot and it’s the good kind!

We have many new things to tell you all about in this issue. First up, the new Wild Planet gallery opens mid-year and to celebrate we invite family Members to join us for the Wild Planet Adventuresnore (details page 36). Be the first to sleep in this gallery surrounded by wild animals!

Second, the Museum’s fabulous new entrance, the Crystal Hall, is rapidly taking shape, as Director Kim McKay reports in her foreword (page 1), and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year has returned for its 50th anniversary exhibition (see Photofeast, page 32).

Oh, and don’t forget to visit the new Rooftop Cafe on Level 4. Stop by for coffee or lunch and take in the extraordinary views to the city and Harbour. And remember that Members receive a 10% discount on purchases here and in the new shop on Level G. It is only through your engagement and unwavering support that we can make projects like this possible and we thank you!

ENTOMOLOGY To bee or not to bee

ASTRONOMY Vision, light & colour

Matthew Smith, wildlife photographer

Bruce White oam, apiarist

WHEN Thursday 2 July

WHEN Thursday 9 July

David Malin, Australian Astronomical Observatory and RMIT University

Hear award-winning wildlife photographer Matthew (Matty) Smith (photo, page 32) share stories of his photographic feats: getting up close to Portuguese Man-o’-war (bluebottles), encounters with large sharks, and sharing personal space with Cuban crocodiles. He also has a tale or two about the loveable Humpback Whale and the search for seadragons and other colourful creatures.

Join Sydney bee expert Bruce White oam as he demystifies bees, those amazing and vital links in our ecosystems. Bruce has an astounding 62 years experience in keeping bees and educating people about them and their sweet products.

Hear about how colonies are formed, the role of each bee ‘type’ and the duties of the queen, and learn the latest about risks to colonies and possible threats and diseases.

Matthew loves the ‘half over, half under’ photograph to give an underwater image a sense of place. In his own words, ‘It marries the underwater world with our own familiar world and links the unknown with the known.

Pressing the shutter on the chance of a lifetime image is the last link in a long chain of events that led to being there in the moment at the right time.’ Don’t miss this fascinating talk.

Bruce has visited 26 beekeeping countries and is a retired technical specialist in apiculture with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. This is a talk not to bee missed, so get buzzy and book your ticket to this fascinating Night Talk now.

WHEN Thursday 10 September

Most of the light we see comes from our nearest star, the Sun, in one way or another, and much of what we know about the universe has been obtained from the study of starlight.

However, our interpretation of what we see everyday involves the complex and stillmysterious interaction of the eye and the brain. While this is the result of a long process of human evolution, it also influences our interpretation of the visual arts and how we recall visual memory. Let David enlighten you about vision and colour as he reveals why the colours of the natural world are muted under moonlight and the colours of the stars are invisible.

Join David on an Adventure World astronomical tour of South America – see page 31 for details.

SERENA TODD

Top The last great picture.

Photo by Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols © Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014.

ALL NIGHT TALKS TIME 6.30–7.45 pm Serena Todd’s photo by Carl Bento.

COST Members $20, non-Members $30 BOOKING Book online at australianmuseum.net.au/

whatson or phone 02 9320 6225

Above Stinger in the sun.

Photo by Carlos Perez Naval © Carlos Perez Naval / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014.

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY A parallel universe

Scan this code to your mobile device to find all Museum events, or visit our website, australianmuseum.net.au.

Page 34

Above left to right Wildlife photographer Matthew Smith.

European Honey Bee. Photo by Dave Britton.

Aurora borealis. Photo © Elizabeth Sakker.

SCHOOL HOLIDAY FUN Enjoy a range of activities here at the Museum every school holidays, like the ever-popular Scientist for a Day. DETAILS Visit australianmuseum.net/event/school-holiday-program.

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Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

night talks

sleepovers EXPLORE

CLIMATE Sprinter and Sprummer Professor Tim Entwistle, Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne WHEN Thursday 17 September

WHEN Friday 4 September, 6.30 pm – Saturday

Tim Entwisle challenges the traditional four seasons and encourages us to think about how we view changes in our natural world. Tim believes that the traditional four seasons make no sense in most parts of Australia. We may like them for historical or cultural reasons, or because they are the same throughout the world, but they tell us nothing of our natural environment. Is it time to reject those seasons and adopt a system that brings us more in tune with our plants and animals – a system that helps us notice and respond to climate change?

Be the first to sleep in the Museum’s latest exhibition, Wild Planet, under the watchful eye of our latest arrivals, the giraffe and zebra, or cozy up to some cheeky monkeys at our Wild Planet Adventure-snore.

Camping, glamping . . . whatever you want to call it, you’ll experience the buzz of Spring, some curious live reptile visitors and the whole Museum as your grand adventure land, surrounded by more than 400 specimens of creatures great and small.

Using examples from his 25 years working in botanic gardens, Tim illustrates how our natural world really responds to seasonal changes in temperature, rainfall and daylight, and why it would be better to divide up the year based on what Australian plants do rather than ancient rites of the Northern Hemisphere.

Martyn Robinson reviews Tim Entwisle’s book Sprinter and Sprummer – see page 18.

Volume 37, Number 1, ISSN 1833-752X Autumn/Winter 2015

Wild Planet Adventure-snore Sleepover

Explore, the news and events magazine of the Australian Museum and Australian Museum Members, will now be published twice per year.

Copyright Unless otherwise credited, all text and images appearing in Explore magazine are copyright © Australian Museum, 2015. 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.

5 September 7.30 am

Dinosnore Sleepover WHEN Friday 26 June, 6.30 pm – Saturday

27 June 7.30 am

How would you like to spend the night sleeping in the Dinosaurs gallery at the Australian Museum? Come to the Museum at night for a special pizza dinner, join in a fun T. rex craft activity, tour the Museum by torchlight, watch some DVDs with friends and then catch some zzzs in the Dinosaurs exhibition, surrounded by the dinosaurs! Make sure you bring your camera to capture every moment of this larger-thanlife experience.

Photo by Billy Ryan.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Museum.

Editorial committee Brendan Atkins (Editor) Tehmi Sukhla (Head, Development, Marketing & Communications) Jodi Rowley (Coordinator, Australian Museum Research Institute) Catherine Beehag (Manager, Science Communication) Serena Todd (Members Events Coordinator)

Play ‘spot the species’ by torchlight, enjoy a special pizza dinner, join in a fun craft activity, and then watch some DVDs with friends before you climb into your swag, surrounded by the animals. Slumber soundly, dreaming of riding the giant whale, playing with the dinosaurs, fossicking for minerals or taming the lions. It’s your adventure!

Design management Louise Cornwall Design and layout Melanie Feddersen, i2i Design Original design template Stephen Goddard Production Jenny Hooker Advertising Brendan Atkins 02 9320 6249 Prepress Spitting Image Printing Peachy Print We welcome your feedback, comments and enquiries.

Email the Editor at explore@austmus.gov.au Kim McKay’s photo © Ross Coffey Australian Museum 6 College Street Sydney NSW 2010 Open daily 9.30 am – 5 pm (closed 25 Dec) t 02 9320 6000 (switch) t 02 9320 6225 (Members)

COST Members: adults $120, children $150, non-Members: adults $140, children $180 AGES 5–12 years

ANCIENT HISTORY Cleopatra: the bald and the beautiful

BOOKING Book online at australianmuseum.net.au/whatson or phone 02 9320 6225 Autumn/Winter April 2015

VOLUME

37

NUMBER

1

Dr Ian Plant, Macquarie University

Wild Planet on the horizon

WHEN Thursday 24 September

Rewilding Madagascar with giant tortoises Garrigarrang: Sea Country and the path to knowledge

She loved her father, she loved her fatherland, she loved soap; the life of Cleopatra was not unlike the plot of a modern soap-opera.

But just how interested in soap was this queen?

Was her hairdresser so busy fighting Octavian that she had to dye and curl her own hair? Did Caesar’s receding hairline really provide her with the incentive to invent and publish a cure for baldness? Was she so extravagant because she could make her own gold?

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Environmental responsibility Explore is produced using carbon-neutral processes under an ISO 14001 environmental management system.

It is printed on ecoStar, a carbon-neutral paper made from 100% post-consumer recycled waste, using alcohol-free, vegetable-based inks made from renewable sources. australianmuseum.net.au

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Join us online The Museum’s new Wild Planet exhibition opens mid-2015.

Photo credits: Zebra, Spectacled Caiman, Lion and Koala © Eric Isselee; Giraffe © Kkulikov; Tortoise © Megan Whittaker.

Join Ian Plant, who heads the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie, for this unusual look at the texts attributed to Cleopatra as evidence for her reception in the Roman world.

/australianmuseum @austmus /austmus @australianmuseum

Explore 37(1) Autumn/Winter 2015

Australian Museum Trust President Catherine Livingstone AO Executive Director & CEO Kim McKay AO

australianmuseum.net.au/enews

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MAKE A DIFFERENCE! The Australian Museum is a place of exploration and discovery, inspiring responsibility for our world by promoting knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of science, nature and culture.

We would like to acknowledge the generous support of our many benefactors, corporate partners and research partners in realising this vision.

To find out how your support can make a difference to our important work, please contact the Development Branch, phone 02 9320 6216 or email development@austmus.gov.au.

Donations to the Australian Museum and its Foundation are tax deductible.

PARTNERS Australian Government, NSW Government and City of Sydney 303Lowe 3M 4 Pines Brewery Adventure World Atlas of Living Australia Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Charles Sturt University Charles Sturt University Winery Cortell Australia Destination NSW IBM Australia Inspiring Australia and National Science Week JCDecaux Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation National Geographic Channel Sydney Grammar School Sydney Water The Daily Telegraph University of Western Sydney AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM FOUNDATION Patrons Ann Macintosh Trust Helen Molesworth Brian Sherman am and Dr Gene Sherman am Presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Circle Claude Gauchat Christopher Grubb Ian and Stephanie Hardy Bill and Alison Hayward Mary Holt Judy Lee Diccon and Elizabeth Loxton Prue and Alasdair MacLeod

Directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Club Belinda Gibson Keith and Maureen Kerridge John Lamble Foundation Michael Mills David Rickards Guardians Jenny Crivelli Warwick Johnson Karina Kelly Jane Matthews Kim McKay ao Mabs Melville Alice Oppen oam John Pearson John and Christina Stitt Vonwiller Foundation Wendy Walker Custodians James and Belinda Allen David Armstrong KR Bell Phillip Cornwell Crivelli Family Foundation John Dickinson Hugh Dixson Frank Howarth psm Adrianne Johnson James E Layt am Margaret Mashford Robert McDougall David Robb Neville and Jane Rowden Barry Sechos David and Daniela Shannon Tehmi Sukhla Vera Vargassoff Tony White am and Doffy White Jennifer Wright

Supporters Antoinette Albert Jane Beniac Sir Ron Brierley Elizabeth Cameron Debra Cox Margaret Donovan Estate of the late Clarence E Chadwick Estate of the late Jacqueline Heather Field Estate of the late Phillip Jack Estate of the late Patricia M Porritt Estate of the late Merrill Pye Estate of the late Gwendoline A West John and Marilyn Evers on behalf of the late Christine Neild Jacob Grossbard Greg and Elizabeth Hammond Ronnie Harding Trevor Haworth Anne Jaumees AJ Loewenthal Lawrence Magid Ross McNair and Robin Richardson David Norman Lynne Ralph Andrew Roberts Rosemary Swift Alastair and Molly Stevenson The late Senta Taft-Hendry Frances Walsh