MV Blog

Your Question: ...but is it real?

"I love the Discovery Centre at Melbourne Museum and wanted to know more about the animals and fossils on display. Are they all real? "

Not all of the displayed material is 100% ‘real’, but a surprisingly large percentage of the displays are certainly real...although it depends on how you would define reality! Let me explain with a few examples:

Dinosaur Skulls

The two dinosaur skulls in the Discovery Centre (of Tarbosaurus and Centrosaurus) are both casts from real specimens, but aren’t themselves ‘real’. For many reasons, casts of dinosaur remains outnumber the real dinosaur fossils on display here at Melbourne  Museum, but you can see real dinosaur fossils in the Dinosaur Walk and 600 Million Years exhibitions in the Science and Life Gallery.

The cast skull from the Cretaceous dinosaur Centrosaurus
Image: Wayne Gerdtz
Source: Museum Victoria  

Cephalopod slab

Yes, this is also real, but it has had some enhancement – the fossils themselves have been cut and polished in contrast to the rough, unpolished rock in which they are embedded. It looks quite different to what the slab looked like originally, but it is certainly real – just a bit more polished, literally!

A slab of ancient sea bed sediemnts with cephalopod shells embedded.
Image: Wayne Gerdtz
Source: Museum Victoria  

Mammal and Bird Mounts

We have a variety of these in the Discovery Centre, ranging from small local Honeyeater species to the impressive Jaguar mount. These are all real in the sense that the skins/hides are preserved from the original animals, but the remaining soft tissue such as eyes and muscles, are not real – just as you would expect for taxidermy animals.

The Discovery Centre's mounted Jaguar specimen
Image: Wayne Gerdtz
Source: Museum Victoria  

Got a question? Ask us!

Links:

600 Million Years – Victoria Evolves

Dinosaur Walk

Live Exhibits blog posts

 Your Question: What is this mysterious object I found on the beach?

One of the most popular services that Discovery Centre provides is identifications. We get asked by members of the public to identify a wide range of unusual objects and specimens on a daily basis. Many are quite straightforward for our experts but others, such as this one, can be trickier. Usually we can tell whether or not something has been made by human hands or is naturally occurring but not always!

Mystery object brought into the Discovery Centre for identification
Image: Nicole Davis
Source: Museum Victoria  

A little while ago one of our enquirers brought in this unusual egg-shaped specimen that he'd found in the Red Bluff cliffs at Black Rock.

  Mystery object brought into the Discovery Centre for identification
Image: Nicole Davis
Source: Museum Victoria  

It was filled with sand and appeared to be a hard material with a thin flexible coating. Due to its findspot at the beachside, the enquirer thought it might be the preserved egg of sea creature, perhaps a turtle.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usoceangov/5514927530/

We sent the specimen to one of our mammalogists and then to an ichthyologist (that’s someone who studies fish). Both of them confirmed that it definitely wasn’t an egg and, furthermore, was an object made by humans rather than a naturally occurring specimen.

The object then went to our History & Technology curators who speculated on what it might be. Was it a globe, some kind of fishing lure or something else entirely? After having a bit of a look, the staff concluded that it was indeed a light bulb. But it was a very specific type of bulb – one that belonged to an old flash for a camera that might have looked something like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak/271841556/

Mystery solved!

Got a question? Ask us!

Your Question: Is the Whale Shark the biggest whale in the sea?

Whale Sharks are certainly big. The largest recorded was over 12 metres long!

A Whale Shark Rhincodon typus
Image: Shiyam ElkCloner
Source: Shiyam ElkCloner, Wikimedia Commons  

But Whale Sharks are not whales; they're sharks – the largest shark in the sea. Twelve-metre sharks might sound terrifying, but Whale Sharks are filter feeders. They eat plankton.

  A Whale Shark in the waters off Tofo Beach, Mozambique
Image: Jon Hanson
Source: Jon Hanson, Wikimedia Commons  

The Whale Shark is not, however, the largest shark that ever lived. That was Carcharocles megalodon, popularly known as the Megalodon. Fossils indicate that this species grew to 16 metres long. Unlike the gentle Whale Shark, Megalodon was the stuff of nightmares. A formidable hunter, Megalodon had the largest teeth of any shark, immensely powerful jaws and enormous speed. Thankfully, Megalodon lived 28 to 1.5 million years ago.

The now extinct Carcharodon megalodon had the biggest teeth of any known shark species. Palaeontologists have found fossil Megalodon teeth that are 18cm long!
Image: Rodney Start
Source: Museum Victoria  

The largest whale in the sea is the Blue Whale, Balaenoptera musculus. They are truly enormous. There is a complete skeleton of a Blue Whale on display at the Melbourne Museum. It's a whopping 17.2 metres long, but that's actually not that big in Blue Whale terms.

The Pygmy Blue Whale on display at the Melbourne Museum (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda)
Image: Rodney Start
Source: Museum Victoria  

Melbourne Museum's Blue Whale is a Pygmy Blue Whale (the smallest of the three subspecies of Blue Whale) and it's not fully grown. It's only about half the length of the longest Blue Whale on record, which measured 33.58 metres! That is about as long as a Boeing 737 jet aeroplane. This not only makes Blue Whales the largest whales in the sea; it makes them the largest animal that ever lived!

The comparative sizes of a Blue Whale, a human and a Hector's Dolphin, the smallest cetacean (whales, dolphins and porpoises)
Image: T. Bjornstad
Source: T. Bjornstad, Wikimedia Commons  

Sharks and whales are very different creatures. Sharks are fish; most are ectothermic ("cold-blooded") and breathe underwater through gills. Whales are mammals; they are endothermic ("warm-blooded"), breathe air and feed milk to their young. Blue Whales, like (almost) all mammals, give birth to live young – the biggest babies in the world. A newborn Blue Whale is as big as an elephant!

Links

MV Blog: Whale vs Shark

Megalodon: Fossil Shark Tooth

InfoSheet: Shark Teeth

InfoSheet: Blue Whale

Treasures: Blue Whale

Your Question: What does National Sorry Day commemorate?

From the late 1800s up to the early 1970s, the Australian government implemented the systematic removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families through a range of assimilation and 'protection policies'. In Victoria, for example, the Aborigines Protection Act 1869 had the broad powers to make laws for 'the care, custody and education of the children of Aborigines'. However these policies were solely based on the premise of race, with the aim to absorb or assimilate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children of mixed descent into the non-Aboriginal community. Not only did these policies have lasting affects on families and community, but they were also active in suppressing Aboriginal languages and culture. Today, the people affected by the government removal policies are remembered as the Stolen Generations.

Australian Human Rights Commission's Bringing them Home report, 1997.
Image: Cover Photo: Heide Smith, ‘Story Time’
Source: Australian Human Rights Commission  

In 1997 the Howard Government released the Bringing them Home report as a recognition and tribute to the many families affected by forced removal. The main finding of the report was that 'between one in three and one in ten Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 to 1970'. The report recommended that the first step in healing is the acknowledgement of truth and the delivery of an official apology, which was provided by Kevin Rudd in 2008.

Another recommendation was that a National Sorry Day should be declared. National Sorry Day was first held on 26 May, 1998; exactly one year after the Bringing them Home report had been published. It encourages Australian society to acknowledge the impact of the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, which is still felt by families and communities today. This annual event is marked with marches, speeches and presentations being held throughout the country, all of which aim to highlight the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and a commitment to reconciliation.

Got a question? Ask us!

Links

National Sorry Day Committee

Reconciliation Australia

Share Our Pride

Australian Human Rights Commission

Your Question: What is eating my carpets?

Some of us with a wool or wool blend carpet have had the unpleasant experience of noticing our carpets slowly receding from the wall. Closer inspection of this phenomenon shows numbers of hairy carpet beetle larvae to be the cause of the loss.

Varied carpet beetle
Image: e_monk
Source: Used under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 from e_monk  

There are a number of different species of introduced and native carpet beetles.  As adults carpet beetles are small and usually dark, often with patterned scales on the body. The adults feed on pollen and can often be found on the window ledge trying to get outside to feed. The larvae can often be hard to see so finding the adults on window ledges can be a good pointer as to the likely presence of the larvae. As the adults feed on pollen, they won’t cause damage to property but of course will be looking to lay more eggs to maintain the population.

Despite their common name, these tenacious insects will feed on a variety of things such as carcasses, feathers, felt, textiles of an organic nature and pet hair.

Carpet beetles Anthrenus verbasci on a flower head
Image: Ombrosoparacloucycle
Source: Used under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 from Ombrosoparacloucycle  

These beetles can originate in bird or mammal nesting which may be in the roof or walls from where the larvae and adults find their way down into the house. Neither the larvae nor the adult beetles bite people but if left unchecked they do have the ability to cause damage to a variety of objects containing organic matter such as carpets, felt on pianos, clothing made from wool, insect collections and animal mounts. There is also the possibility for the shed larval skins to cause some irritation to people.

  Dermestidae: Anthrenus sp (larva).
Image: Jacobo Martin
Source: Used under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 from JMDN  

While these small beetles do a great job in nature of helping to break down and consume organic matter it is wise to prevent them from dining out on your expensive woollens. Undertake regular vacuuming concentrating under furniture or areas that are not often disturbed. Keep an eye out for any build up of pet hair and lint which can also support populations of these beetles.

Got a question? Ask us!

Links:

CSIRO: Guide to the control of clothes moths and carpet beetles.

CSIRO: Carpet Beetles 

Your Question: What does the word megafauna mean?

The name megafauna means ‘big animals’, generally animals with a body mass of over 40 kilograms. Much of the time, megafauna is general term used to describe a particular group of large land animals that evolved millions of years after the dinosaurs became extinct. The extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago left a void of large land animals worldwide. Over millions of years, the surviving mammals, birds and reptiles evolved to include some very large animals. This group of megafauna was at their largest and most widespread during the Quaternary Period, in the last 2.5 million years.

  The skull and upper body of Diprotodon, the largest marsupial to have lived
Image: Michelle McFarlane
Source: Museum Victoria  

Australia’s Quaternary megafauna were unique, and included giant marsupials such as Diprotodon, huge flightless birds such as Genyornis (a distant relative to today’s ducks and geese) and giant reptiles such as Varanus ‘Megalania’ (related closely to living goannas and the Komodo Dragon), all three of which are displayed in Melbourne Museum’s Dinosaur Walk exhibition - despite the fact these animals are not dinosaurs at all.

The skeleton of Thylacoleo, the so-called marsupial 'lion'
Image: Jon Augier
Source: Museum Victoria  

Some more examples of Australian megafauna are also on display in the adjoining exhibition at Melbourne Museum called 600 Million Years: Victoria evolves, such as the curious-looking Zygomaturus and Palorchestes (both relatives of Diprotodon), the carnivorous Thylacoleo (sometimes called a marsupial ‘lion’), and some megafaunal relatives of kangaroos and wallabies such as Protemnodon.

  The skeleton of Zygomaturus, a Rhinoceros-like marsupial
Image: Benjamin Healley
Source: Museum Victoria  

It is worth noting that not all megafauna are extinct – Australia has living megafauna in the form of Red and Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Saltwater Crocodiles, some of which are on display in the Wild: Amazing animals in a changing world exhibition, which is also in the Melbourne Museum Science and Life Gallery.

Got a question? Ask us!

Links:

Video, Studying Megafauna Fossils

Book, Prehistoric Giants: The Megafauna of Australia, published by Museum Victoria