Melbourne Museum

Last week the Immigration Museum Discovery Centre participated in the annual Shake Your Family Tree event. Organised by the National Archives of Australia (NAA), this is a national event that brings together family history experts in one location for an entire day.

  Victorian Archives Centre Foyer
Image: Phillip Morrissey
Source: Phillip Morrissey  

It was an opportunity for budding genealogists to delve even deeper into their family history with a full day of activities presented by the National Archives and others. There were many opportunities to speak to experts about resources that can assist with your family history journey and visitors could hear personal stories from fascinating guest speakers. Key sessions were webcast, including a special panel discussion on how migrants have shaped Australia, moderated by Karen Middleton, SBS journalist, and an introduction to the National Archives new website Destination: Australia which showcases over 21,000 images of migrants in Australia after World War II.

Along with many other institutions such as the State Library of Victoria, Public Record Office of Victoria, Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Koori Heritage Trust to name but a few, we set up our stand in the foyer of the VAC in North Melbourne and helped many enthusiastic visitors with questions about doing their family history research. 

Immigration Museum Info desk
Image: Phillip Morrissey
Source: Phillip Morrissey  

Immigration Museum Info desk at NAA
Image: Phillip Morrissey
Source: Phillip Morrissey  

It was the perfect opportunity to promote the services of the Discovery Centre at the Immigration Museum which we hope will encourage more visitation to the Museum and the IDC.

Last Friday Myee Patten, daughter of MV staff member Will Patten, came to work with her dad to stick her hands in a bucket of goo. This might seem an odd school holiday activity, but it will help exhibition curators demonstrate the toys of Aboriginal children in the Toy Stories section of First Peoples. For scale and context, children’s objects are best shown in the hands of children– so we needed to model some hands for this important task. Myee was willing to let us borrow her hands for the job.

Myee with her dad, Will, sitting very still and waiting patiently as museum preparators make a mould of her hands.
Source: Museum Victoria  

This pink goo, or alginate, is most commonly used by dentists to make impressions of teeth. It’s non-toxic, flexible when set, and smells just like a dentist’s office! It’s also extremely fast-setting so the preparators mixed it up as quickly as possible and poured it over Myee’s hands as she held the poses needed to demonstrate the objects in use.

Preparators Pete and Steven in a stirring frenzy as they mix up the pink goo as quickly as they can!
Source: Museum Victoria  

Myee’s first job was to hold her hands as if cradling a baby, to support a clay doll from Milingimbi in Arnhem Land in the 1930s. The second time round, Myee held a fragment of lignum as if she’d just flicked a mudswitch, a popular game among children growing up along the Murray River.

Pete and Myee with the freshly-set mould of her hands.
Source: Museum Victoria  

Myee did an excellent job of staying completely still while the alginate set. Once it was solid – and you can tell this because the colour changes from purple, to pink, through to white –  Myee carefully wriggled out of the mould, leaving behind an exact impression of her hands.

Mixing up the plaster ready to pour into the mould. This is a special mix of plaster and cement that sets extremely hard.
Source: Museum Victoria  

Minutes after her hands were free, the preparators filled the moulds with hard-setting liquid plaster. A few hours later, they extracted the casts. The preps will remove any rough bits and prepare the casts for their important job of display. And in years to come, when Myee visits with her school or family, she can point out to her friends how she lent us a hand (or two)!

Preparators Brendan and Pete carefully removing the cast of Myee's hands from the mould. This model will support the clay doll.
Source: Museum Victoria

A cast of Myee's hand holding a piece of twig. The process that the museum's preparators use captures every skin wrinkle and tiny detail.
Source: Museum Victoria  

Links:

MV News: Will Patten "Talking to everybody"

MV Blog: Mudswitches on the plaza

To celebrate the upcoming release of the Android version of the MV Field Guide app, we're adding a suite of new species; species that have been specifically requested by the users of the existing iOS app.

However, we were missing images of a few species, including Victoria's bird emblem the Helmeted Honeyeater. With no images, these species were going to be left out of the app.

So we asked our MV Blog readers for help – and the response was overwhelming!

Helmeted Honeyeater, Lichenostomus melanops cassidix
Image: Ian J. Wilson
Source: Ian J. Wilson  

Thank you to everyone who sent in images for our MV Field Guide photography competition. We wanted to include them all, but we had to be mindful of download size (with over 700 species in the app, that's a lot of pictures).

The winning photographers were:

• Neville Bartlett
• Leo Berzins
• Arthur Carew
• Micha Jackson
• Gordon Slater
• Ian J. Wilson

Thanks to these people, the upcoming Android version of the MV Field Guide (and the iOS upgrade) will include the Helmeted Honeyeater, the Diamond Firetail and the Little Eagle (along with 25 other new species).

Haven't got the MV Field Guide app? Download it for free from the App Store. Android users, stay tuned – it's coming soon!

UPDATE: The Android version is now available from Google Play. Hooray!

Diamond Firetail, Stagonopleura guttata
Image: Gordon Slater
Source: Gordon Slater  

The Kooyang ('eels' in the Gunditjmara family of languages) section of the upcoming First Peoples exhibition will feature an eel trap in a diorama of Western District eel-farming practice. The trap, woven from puung'ort (spear grass) by Gunditjmara woman Jody-Ann Agnew, tells the story of one of the world’s oldest aquaculture systems.

And this is what it's all about - eels. This is one of several eels created for the diorama.
Image: Benjamin Healley
Source: Museum Victoria  

Museum designers, curators, photographers and preparators have worked closely with Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Corporation to capture a slice of the Western District, complete with animals, plants and terrain typical of this area. The models and specimens of eels and other wildlife created by Dean Smith and Kym Haines are dazzlingly true-to-life, including a leech that Kym modelled from the little sucker that hunted him down when Jody's mother, senior weaver Aunty Eileen Alberts, took museum staff to Tyrendarra!

Preparator Dean Smith holding models of native fish that he made for the Kooyang diorama. One is an unfinished cast, the other is fully painted.
Image: Benjamin Healley
Source: Museum Victoria  

Steven Sparrey and Brendon Taylor are recreating the volcanic boulders of the Tyrendarra lava flow thrown out by Budj Bim (Mt Eccles) thousands of years ago. Gunditjmara people used these rocks to create an ingenious network of ponds, channels and dams to farm the eels. Aunty Eileen and Jody will oversee the final stages of the diorama construction.

Preparator Brendan Taylor working on replicating the rocky terrain of the Western District.
Image: Benjamin Healley
Source: Museum Victoria  

First Peoples opens at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum in September 2013.

Links:

Media News: Taking the eel-path to a shared history

Video: Lake Condah, Gunditjmara Country

The Wanderer Butterfly, or Monarch, is probably the most recognisable butterfly in the world. It populates children's books and is the classical species used to illustrate insect life cycles. The Children's Museum at Melbourne Museum has housed enormous replicas of the Wanderer caterpillar, pupa and adult for the last 13 years.

The giant butterfly, pupa and caterpillar in the Children's Gallery at Melbourne Museum.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Museum Victoria  

Wanderer caterpillars feed on plants known as milkweeds. In Australia these include plants introduced from Africa and South America, such as Asclepias and Gomphocarpus. One of the most common is the Swan Plant (Gomphocarpus fruticosa), which may have been accidentally introduced as part of the regular trade between Australia and South Africa, or deliberately introduced for the 'silk cotton' to assist in hat making. This species is considered a noxious weed in some parts of Australia, and its abundance has been dramatically reduced by weed control programs, leading to a concurrent reduction in Wanderer populations around Melbourne.

Caterpillars feeding on the Swan Palnt, Gomphocarpus fruticosa.
Source: Patrick Honan  

Milkweeds contain poisons called cardiac glycosides which are absorbed by the caterpillars and used for their own defences. These poisons affect the hearts of vertebrates such as birds, inducing vomiting at half the lethal dose. Wanderers advertise the fact that they are poisonous to eat with contrasting patterns of yellow and black in the caterpillar, and orange and black in the adult. The chemicals are concentrated in the tips of the wings of adults, so any bird venturing a taste will cop a full dose and leave the butterfly alone.

The warning colours on the hindwing of a Wanderer Butterfly. The black spot is the 'sex gland' of a male.
Source: Patrick Honan  

The caterpillars themselves also become victims of their own food plants. Studies in the USA show that up to 30 per cent of very young caterpillars become glued to the leaves of milkweeds by latex in the sticky sap. And when its first bite ingests an unusually high quantity of cardiac glycosides, a newly-hatched caterpillar may become seized for ten minutes or more in a state of catalepsis before recovering.

A late-instar caterpillar addressing the milky sap of Asclepias rotundifolia.
Source: Patrick Honan  

Despite this, some birds such as Pied Currawongs (Strepera graculina) and Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes (Coracina novaehollandiae) seem to be able to feed on Wanderers with impunity. The caterpillars are also attacked by a tachinid fly (Winthemia neowinthemoides), whose larvae feed on caterpillars from the inside, slowly killing them. In some areas, particularly coastal NSW and Queensland, these parasites account for 80-100 per cent of Wanderer larvae.

A male Wanderer overpowers the female (left) before flying off together and resting for several hours whilst mating (right).
Source: Patrick Honan  

Mating by Wanderer Butterflies can be an aggressive experience. Males patrol patches of host plants, awaiting females. When females appear they are chased with great vigour by the males, often spiralling high into the air. Eventually the male may overpower her with the assistance of pheromones that cause her wing muscles to seize, forcing her to the ground where he mates with her. In Australia, breeding may occur year-round in the northern parts of the Wanderers' range, but in southern areas thousands of adults cluster together in trees after mating to see out the cooler months. Although not as spectacular as the roosting sites in North America that host many millions of butterflies, these clusters around Sydney and Adelaide are a memorable sight.

Female Wanderer resting during the day.
Source: Patrick Honan  

Flight of the Butterflies 3D opens at IMAX Melbourne Museum on 21 March. 

Patrick's first post: Monarch or Wanderer butterfly

References

Orr, A. & Kitching, R., 2010, The Butterflies of Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 296pp.

Oyeyele, S.O & Zalucki, M.P., 1990, Cardiac glycosides and oviposition by Danaus plexippus on Asclepias fruticosa in south-east Queensland (Australia), with notes on the effect of plant nitrogen content, Ecological Entomology, 15:177–185.

Parsons, W.T. & Cuthbertson, E.G., 2001, Noxious Weeds of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 698pp

Zalucki, M.P. & Brower, L.P., 1992, Survival of first instar larvae of Danaus plexippus (Lepidoptera: Danainae) in relation to cardiac glycoside and latex content of Asclepias humistrata (Asclepiadaceae), Chemoecology, 3(2):81-93

Chauliognathus lugubris. The Plague Soldier Beetle. This wee beast accounts for hundreds of insect identification requests we receive at the Discovery Centre during the summer. At this time of year these little pollinators descend from the crowns of flowering trees to indulge in seething masses of mating activity triggered by hot weather.

This frenzied 'coupling' activity rarely goes unnoticed, especially because of the numbers in which the beetles congregate– we often get calls from people describing masses of these little cigar-shaped critters with their distinctive orange collars in their gardens; regular readers will have read our earlier post about Plague Soldier Beetles.

Last week, however, it seems this beast and its plaguing behaviour caught the attention of the Rainbow Lorikeet class at Dame Nellie Melba Kindergarten in Richmond. The Lorikeets' teacher Adam contacted us with an identification request, accompanied by some photographs and observations of the insects in question from the students, some of which I’ll share below:

  Grace from Dame Nellie Melba Kindergarten holds the 'mystery beetle' for a photo
Image: Adam Shrivell
Source: Adam Shrivell  

It has 3 legs and 3 legs (from Sylvie). They have two antennae (coming) out of their head (from Andrew and Hugo) 

A great start for young eyes – these are key characteristics of insects that separate them from other arthropods

I think it's a stink bug (from Ralph) and I think it's a beetle (From Taj) 

These are also good observations. Like the animals we call 'stink bugs', they can emit an unpleasant liquid as a defence mechanism.

I think it's a grass hopper (from Harry) 

Harry isn’t quite right here, but the plague behaviour is similar to locusts, so still a good observation.

It's a beetle and he flies away and he has the mummy and the daddy and the baby and the dog (from Jed) 

Apart from the bit about the dog, Jed is also on the money.

I think they only come out once a year in summer (from Grace) 

Grace has also hit the nail on the head – clearly we have some budding entomologists here!

They carry each other (from Lucas) 

In a manner of speaking, yes they do – but we may leave this to Lucas's guardians to explain further if required.

Alexander, Lucas and Grace gathering a specimen
Image: Adam Shrivell
Source: Adam Shrivell  

As seasoned respondents to enquiries of all types from the public, we thought the Rainbow Lorikeets were particularly clever in separating their observations into 'what we think' and 'what we know' – in doing so, they were more than half-way there with their identification by the time it reached us. This, along with the photos, made our entomologist’s job quite easy in providing the identification as Plague Soldier Beetles.

Dame Nellie Melba Kindergarten's Rainbow Lorikeets, with teacher Adam
Image: Adam Shrivell
Source: Adam Shrivell  

Well done Rainbow Lorikeets, we in the Discovery Centre are impressed with your entomology skills!