One of the nicest things about working in the Discovery Centre, and at the Museum in general, is the opportunity to combine personal interests with work projects. I happen to be a big fan of snakes; more specifically, Australian pythons. When my pet python shed the other day, I thought it might be fun to compare the sloughed skin of my very small juvenile python with one of the bigger pythons we keep at the Museum.

Image: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Siobhan Motherway

Meet Penfold (do you remember Dangermouse?). He's a Stimson's Python (Antaresia stimsoni), which is Australia's second smallest python. The only smaller python is Antaresia perthensis, the Pygmy or Anthill Python. In this photo, Penfold is only a few weeks old. He'll get bigger, but he'll be lucky to reach a metre long as an adult. He currently weighs under 20g, and is about 36cm long.

Image: Max Strating  Source: Museum Victoria

And now, here's your humble correspondent having a cuddle with Olive, a member of Australia's second biggest python species (Liasis olivaceus)! She's a substantial lass; quite a different prospect from the casual one-handed approach you see in the first photo! Olive loves coming out and was trying to explore everywhere, thus the slightly disconcerted expression. I'm not sure what her vital statistics are in terms of weight and length, perhaps someone from Live Exhibits might tell us in comments.

Image: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

And their respective cast-offs. A great comparison, don't you think? Such diversity within a family.

We trekked down to Live Exhibits to get the shots of Olive and pick up her sloughed skin. This was the perfect opportunity to introduce our newest staff member Max and fantastic volunteer Mary to this department. Thanks very much to Tash and the other Live Exhibits staff for all your help!

National Science Week this year runs from 14 to 22 August and Museum Victoria is holding some great events to celebrate. As part of this, last Saturday Melbourne Museum Discovery Centre hosted a presentation by our Live Exhibits team about Keeping Bugs Alive. In four packed-out sessions throughout the day Deanna and Jessie talked about what bugs are and explained the ins and outs of keeping bugs as pets. This included info about constructing a habitat, feeding and handling these fascinating creatures. Following the talk visitors got to view and handle some of our resident millipedes, praying mantises, phasmids and snails. It was a fun and fascinating day and we and our visitors all had a ball hearing the talks and getting to handle the bugs.

Image: Nicole Davis  Source: Museum Victoria

Discovery Centre also has other activities happening throughout the week until next Sunday, including a Mega Touch Trolley (actually two big tables!) where you can handle and examine a huge range of specimens, including rocks & minerals, insects, fossils, animal skeletons and much more. The specimens are drawn from the Discovery Centre's interpretation collection which myself, Siobhan, volunteer Mary and library student David have been researching over the last few months.

Image: Nicole Davis  Source: Museum Victoria

We are also hosting SCINEMA - Festival of Science Film - every day throughout the week in our seminar room. These films explore many different areas of the world Science through films ranging from several minutes to over an hour long. There are also great short pieces from Primary and Secondary students at schools throughout Australia. Information about the films can be found on the SCINEMA website.

Image: Nicole Davis  Source: Museum Victoria

Whilst sitting at our desk and managing the enquiries coming in over the phone and website, we do get to overhear the visitors' reactions to a lot of our physical displays. We get the same ones quite often, so I thought I'd chronicle a few of my favourites here.

Image: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

"Bird-dropping spider?!"

Yes, really! This is my favourite almost-question. The tone of voice employed by the visitor is almost universally a mixture of amusement, fascination, disgust and disbelief. Isn't evolution brilliant? It has worked out best for this particular spider to look like poo - I imagine the other bird-dropping spiders don't mind.

Image: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria 

In reference to Murray, our favourite live exhibits cabinet denizen: "Is he real?" (Yes!) "...is he ALIVE?"

Yes! He's not very active, but he does like to come and bask on his upper branches and soak up a bit of the heat lamp. It's a hard life, eh?

Image: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

"Look at this giant bee! Is this real?"

Er, no. That's actually a large-scale model of a European Wasp. Something tells me that if the model were to scale, the Great Australian Barbecue would be an awful lot more fraught with danger than it typically is.

We had a visit from the lovely Olga today, bearing gifts from the also-lovely Leonie. Both these women work for the Museum Victoria Library, and are the ones who keep our shelves stocked with all manner of reference books pertaining to all the different areas that the Museum covers; Sciences, History and Technology, and Indigenous Cultures. Not only does our library need to address all these topics, but we also have to meet the needs of all our users. We get everyone from post-doctoral to primary school researchers in here, so we need books appropriate to these levels.

So when Olga came in with an armful of new picture books and another armful of new furry friends for our toy box, we were very pleased! Our new kids' books include stuff on Aboriginal tools, sustainability and dinosaurs. I even caught the animals having a storytime - here you can see our old friend Tree Kangaroo reading the story of Sam the Koala to all his new mates!

Photo: Nicole Davis  Source: Museum Victoria

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with Leon's time in the Discovery Centre. Fear not, he is doing perfectly well back out in the Live Exhibits department, but he was starting to exhibit signs of age-related wobbliness, startling us all by falling off the perch (literally, not metaphorically) a few times.

So Live Exhibits folk came to effect the changeover, taking Leon out the back, pulling out his lush greenery, and replacing it with a more austere decor of driftwood and dry grasses.

 Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

In Leon's place we have Jacky (Amphibolurus muricatus). Jacky is a Jacky Lizard, a species widespread over south-eastern Australia. Whilst he isn't nearly the colour-changing show pony that Leon is, he makes up for it by being a lot more active, with daring leaps from log to log and onto the sides of the enclosure. And, to be honest, he has a far more attractive tongue.

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria