Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Here at the Discovery Centre, we receive all sorts of finds from all sorts of people. A 9 year old beachcomber finds a "shark tooth" which turns out to be millions of years old, for example. Today, an enquirer came in with this fine specimen he found with his metal detector, in suburban Melbourne. It certainly is heavy, with a metallic cast. It warms to the touch and has an intriguing scalloped surface. Of course, our visitor would like to know if his find is of extra- or terrestrial origin! 

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

Looking at it through the eye of one of our Discovery Centre magnifying lenses yields little more information, so off to the Senior Collection Manager of Mineralogy it goes!

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

This attractive item came into the Discovery Centre today, identified by the enquirer as a Sioux Dance Fan, beaded and trimmed with Eagle feathers.

His purpose in bringing the fan in was to have the type of fur used in the trim identified. The only hint he could offer was that it was from North America, and that the animal products in the fan had been sourced from roadkill.

Well, at least it's a beautiful outcome from an unfortunate demise!

Whilst we don't specialise in North American mammal hides, our stalwart Mammalogist dutifully came down to inspect the item when he had a moment. It wasn't beaver - too coarse. It wasn't dog - too fine. His conclusion? Hare. Another mystery solved!

An enquiry today from an outdoor enthusiast who saw, while hiking, a curious yellow beast. Worm? Mutant? He contacted the Discovery Centre, wondering what it might be, explaining that it was bright yellow and on "permanently moist ground." Intrigued, we referred the enquiry to our Collection Manager of Invertebrates, who explained that the worm-like creature was a "land planarian" or "terrestrial flatworm." Now, most planarians are marine, and only a few can be found while hiking, feeding on small invertebrates like slugs and earthworms, or on the corpses of animals larger and duller than themselves. Seen one? 

Photo: Ian McCann  Source: Parks Victoria

After some beachcombing on Phillip Island, Judith came to the Discovery Centre with her finds - white, fragile, gorgeous things reminiscent of lettuce. She wanted to know if they were fossils, or not, so we referred her items to an expert in marine invertebrates, who passed them on to an expert in mammalogy, who confirmed that they were - fragmented seal skulls! 

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

With a mounting collection of rocks and minerals on the Discovery Centre enquiry shelves awaiting identification, Museum Victoria geologists Bill (below left) and Dermot (below right) paid us a visit to impart some of their rock-solid (hilarious pun by me) wisdom...

Photo: Meg Lomax  Source: Museum Victoria

Now, change of scene for a moment - earlier in the week, one of the Discovery Centre volunteers was kind enough to bring in some tasty snacks for us, including cheese and biscuits, dried apricots, almonds, and also some special chocolates... these chocolates were covered in a sugar coating and shaped and coloured to resemble pebbles. Novel and tasty.

Photo: Meg Lomax  Source: Museum Victoria

Being the wacky funsters that we are, we thought we'd offer up a couple of these rock-chocolates to Bill and Dermot for "identification".

After weighing, and inspecting, and consulting with each other, and mumbling something about garden variety river pebbles, Jo took the identification process into her own hands and bit the "rock" in half.

After a lot of "ha ha's" and "very funny's", the parting message from our expert geologists was "don't tell my colleagues about this!"

So I decided to post it on the web...

Photo: Meg Lomax  Source: Museum Victoria