MV Blog

Kevin is the Senior Curator of Mammals at Museum Victoria. He reports on his recent expedition to the mountains of Sulawesi, Indonesia in this series of blog posts.

I recently returned from an expedition into the heart of Sulawesi's central mountain forests. Shrouded in the cool moisture of clouds, these forests appear to be made of moss erupting from the ground. Halfway between Asia and Australia, the native species on this island are neither Australian nor Asian but a unique mix of lineages from the two great continents.

The mountain rainforest of Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Together with Anang S. Achmadi, Curator of Mammals from the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (the national museum of Indonesia) and a team of local guides, I hiked two days from the rice fields of Mamasa to a field camp at 2600 m in the mountains above.

The Sulawesi expedition team.
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Base camp for the Sulawesi expedition.
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Led by our local guides, including 84 year-old village-elder, Pak Daud, we encountered a pristine, primordial forest rich in biodiversity. Streams dissect the plateau spreading the daily afternoon showers across the landscape and to the fertile rice fields in the valleys below. The endangered mountain anoa (a pygmy water buffalo found only in the mountains of Sulawesi) run in large numbers, bear cuscus (relatives of Australia's brushtail possums) climb through the tree tops, dozens of orchid and pitcher plant species cling to the moss that covers everything, and a diverse assemblage of rodents survive in large numbers. We came in search of these rodents found nowhere else on earth, but which may help us understand the relationship between Australia's native rodents and Asia's.

Hiking through mountain terrain in Sulawesi.
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Over three weeks of surveys in these remote forests, we detected 34 species of small mammals (< 1 kg), a healthy number for any forest. Consider that there are about the same number of small mammals across the entire State of Victoria. The rodents in these mossy mountain forests are characterised by a range of morphological oddities, such as giant woolly rats, Eropeplus, small arboreal mice, Haeromys, spiny rats, Maxomys, tiny arboreal squirrels, Prosciurillus, large terrestrial squirrels, Hyosciurus, and a collection of shrew rats that, like shrews, specialise on eating invertebrates. These shrew rats include two species of the soft-furred Tateomys and one species of the short-legged Melasmothrix.

Rodents of Sulawesi. Left: small arboreal mouse Haeromys montanus. | Right: giant woolly rat Eropeplus canus
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Two species of shrew rats from Sulawesi. Left: Tateomys rhinogradoides | Right: Tateomys macocercus
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

We also detected two shrew rat genera that have not been seen since the 1970s including three individuals each of the puppy-faced Crunomys and the rare, worm-eating, gangly-legged Sommeromys, previously known from a single specimen.

Two general of shrew rats that were found for the first time since the 1970s. Above: Crunomys sp. | Below: Sommeromys sp.
Image: Kevin Rowe
Source: Museum Victoria  

Alexandra is the Early Learning Program Coordinator at Scienceworks. She loves exploring the ways in which science engages young children.

We just trialled the brand new early learning Discovery Kit called 'Looking' with four- and five-year-old kindergarten children from Laverton North Children's Centre. Rosemary Monagle, the kindergarten teacher, uses a noticeboard to communicate with parents of the children she teaches. This is the notice she wrote about my visit:

Alexandra from Scienceworks visited the kindergarten today. She brought pictures of Nitty Gritty Super City and discussed what the children could see and what materials or tools were used in each picture. Alexandra then introduced the children to her 'yellow box' of 'looking' tools. The children learnt each tool's name and the correct way to use it.

The children collected natural materials from the yard or home and used the looking tools to see the objects close-up. The children drew their favourite looking tool and what they could see when using it.

Drawing of looking at a ladybug through a magnifiying glass.
Image: Angel
Source: Angel  

Drawing of looking at flowers through a microscope.
Image: Olivia
Source: Olivia  

The 'Looking' kit will be accompanied by a DVD of interviews with MV scientists, historians and curators talking about their favourite lens tools and how they use them.

Links:

Nitty Gritty Super Kids

Interactive PDF trial

You can see the work of MV's preparation department before you even walk in the door of Melbourne Museum. Hanging in the front window there is a food chain of predators chasing a school of fish. Our preparators created over one thousand individually painted fish for the school and the brilliant prehistoric animal models in the Science and Life Gallery are their work, too.

One of specialist tasks of the preparators is taxidermy: preserving the skin of an animal specimen and preparing a mount that records exactly how the animal looked in life. Taxidermy is truly an art that takes many years to learn and even longer to master. At Museum Victoria, our master taxidermist is Senior Preparator Dean Smith.

I paid him a visit as he was putting the finishing touches on a taxidermy mount of a male koala. This individual was the unfortunate victim of a road accident; Dean reported that its skull and jaw were fractured from the impact. It's a reminder for all of us to drive carefully in areas where animals roam, but this koala will now have a second life as a teaching aid in the museum's Discovery Program, our mobile outreach service. Says Dean, 'it will go to the elderly, the disabled, little kids... they will be able to touch a koala.'

Senior Preparator Dean Smith with his handiwork.
Source: Museum Victoria  

Dean learned how to prepare mounts from a former taxidermist who worked at the museum for 40 years. He's now passing on his skills to other staff in the Preparation Department, describing it as 'the cycle of learning'.

This beautifully prepared koala specimen will join the Discovery Program in 2012.
Source: Museum Victoria  

From start to finish, a specimen like this takes several weeks. First Dean removed and tanned the skin. He cast an exact copy of the koala's body and stretched the skin over the cast, pinning it it place. He recreated the fine structure of its head beneath the skin. After three weeks of drying, he cleaned the fur and airbrushed the fleshy details of its ears and mouth. The result is an exquisite specimen that is incredibly lifelike.

Close-up of the koala specimen, showing Dean's amazing attention to detail.
Source: Museum Victoria  

Later this month, Dean will be working on a Wedge-tailed Eagle for the Discovery Program. He says that birds are much more difficult to prepare than mammals because their feathers lose their structure. 'You have to sit for hours and comb the feathers.' We'll cover the process here on the MV Blog.

Links:

Wildlife Victoria

Infosheet: the Koala

What's that smell?

Prickly Katydids, or Spiny Tree Crickets, occur from the rainforests of northern New South Wales to Iron Range in Far North Queensland. There are four species of Prickly Katydids but the most common is Phricta spinosa. It has the rather long official common name of Giant Spiny Forest Katydid and is found from Innisfail to Cooktown. Those that know and love this species simply call it Phricta.

The spiny countenance of a Prickly Katydid.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan  

During the day, Phricta sits motionless on bark or amongst twigs with its legs held out straight where it is remarkably well camouflaged. Some bird species, particularly Black Butcherbirds, move up and down tree trunks trying to disturb the insects so they will give themselves away. When threatened, Phricta will point its back legs skyward, revealing rows of sharp spines and red patches at the bases of the legs. These red patches appear to discourage predators.

The legs of this adult male bear the black and orange markings of its startle display.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan

Adults have a body length of 10cm or so, and their highly sensitive antennae may be three times that length. Adults are normally found high in the rainforest canopy, but after mating, the female glides to the ground to lay her eggs in the soil.

An adult female pushes her abdomen into sandy soil to deposit a batch of eggs
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan  

The young Phricta feed low in the understorey on the constant 'rain' of flowers and buds from above.

Phricta moult several times before reaching adulthood. Moulting takes place during the first part of the night and they are very vulnerable to predators at this time. The elongated antennae may take a long time to withdraw fully from the old skin.

Phricta moulting at night.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan  

The colours of juvenile Phricta are variable and help camouflage them against tree trunks and lichen-covered bark.

Juvenile Phricta are often beautifully patterned with greens and browns. The budding wing pads can be seen between the spines of the legs and thorax.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan

After reaching adulthood, Phricta can be found higher in the canopy, feeding on the young leaves of trees and shrubs. On particularly windy or stormy nights, they will move down into the lower canopy or into tree holes to shelter from the weather.

Like most katydid species, male Phricta call loudly to attract females in the rainforest at night, a sound familiar to people who frequent these forests. Females possess an auditory tympanum (or ear) on their forelegs to pick up the call.

Parasites on the thorax of juvenile Phricta.
Image: Patrick Honan
Source: Patrick Honan  

Phricta are attacked by owls and other predatory birds, as well as honeyeaters and brush turkeys. They are also host to parasitic mites, which gather sometimes in large numbers on the top of the thorax. The effects of these mites on the insects are not known.

Phricta can be seen in the 'Diversity' display in Bugs Alive! at Melbourne Museum. Despite being very common and widespread in North Queensland rainforests, this species was not described scientifically until 2005, an indication of how much is still to be discovered and catalogued by science.

Further reading:

Rentz, D., 1996, Grasshopper Country: the Abundant Orthopteroid Insects of Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 284pp.

Rentz, D., 2010, A Guide to the Katydids of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, 214pp