Several Giant Katydids were captured by Live Exhibits staff last December during the annual field collection trip to tropical north Queensland.  The adults mated, laid eggs and died, as they do.  Now almost a year later, the eggs have begun hatching and we currently have seventeen nymphs with more emerging every day.  This nymph is the first hatched and has just shed its skin to reveal the typical body form of the adult.  No larger than your fingernail, this nymph will eventually grow to about 5cm with antennae even longer.  They are currently feeding on live guava tree leaves which seems to work well for the babies.  These will go on display in the Museum's Bugs Alive exhibition with a mixture of other cricket and katydid species in a couple of months.

3rd instar Giant Katydid nymph. Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

3rd instar Giant Katydid nymph side on. Photo: Luke Simpkin Source : Museum Victoria

Southern Sassafras typically grows in the bottom of deep forest gullies beneath towering Mountain Ash in Victoria's mountain forests.  In the Forest Gallery, several small Sassafras trees were planted in the protected southern end in 2000 and recently the largest of these have grown up to balcony level.   Today the horticulture staff noticed that they have flowered for the very first time.  The small cream flowers have a very strong and lovely sweet scent not unlike daphne.  The chemistry of Sassafras is fascinating and has been used as a medicinal plant by Aboriginal people and investigated by chemists in more recent times.  Aboriginal people are thought to have used Sassafras to treat venereal disease - a practice later taken up be European settlers.  The tree's bark was once marketed in England as “Victorian Sassafras” and used to make a tonic drink. This caused a great debate with pharmacist J. Bosisto and doctors in Melbourne who believed Sassafras oil to be poisonous, when British doctors insisted it was safe to take even in large quantities.  Sassafras was the first Australian plant from which an alkaloid was isolated. The leaves are the sole food plant for for caterpillars of the beautiful and rarely seen MacLeay’s Swallowtail Butterfly.  Visitors to the Forest Gallery in the next few weeks will be able to see the flowers in the tree canopy up close from the balcony level.

Scented blooms of the Sassafras in Melbourne Museum's Forest Gallery Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

Click here to see the life stages of Macleay's Swallowtail Butterfly

Specialist arborists visited the Forest Gallery again last Tuesday 11th August to prune and shape the trees before spring growth and bird nesting starts in earnest.  This ensures they fit within the shape of the fully enclosed gallery, and maintains the designed views as the trees and shrubs grow.  Importantly it also thins the canopy foliage so the trees less likely to fall or snap in strong winds.  While they were in there, one of the crew cleaned the wind sensor on the top of one of the 20m high poles.  It was all just in the nick of time- Melbourne had gale forces winds over the weekend- at 11:20am on 16th August it went literally off the scale- which only reads up to 90.72 km/h.  To put this in perspective, a blue flashing light goes off when wind in the Gallery reaches 45km/h and we close the space to the public for safety.  As far as we are aware, no other Museum in the world has to close a gallery during strong winds.  Happily not one branch was lost in the windstorm- testament to the work of the arborists.

An arborist scales the burnt timber pole to clean the wind sensor. Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

Tree climbing without spikes. Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

Pruning keeps the trees from pressing up against the mesh. Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

The Forest Gallery's Silver Wattles have started flowering- an indicator of the start of seasonal activity in plants and animals in the tall forests.  The indigenous Kulin people recognised the period around August, marked by wattle and orchid blooms, as a distinct season.  'Jack' the mature male Satin Bower Bird in the Forest Gallery has plucked choice wattle blooms from the tree canopy and used them to decorate his bower in preparation for the mating season.  Many people know Satin Bower Birds collect blue objects, but closer observation will show they also collect yellowing grass stems and yellow flowers from Silver Wattles, Mountain Correa and Purple Appleberry.  The Forest Gallery's committed horticultural staff are developing strategies to protect tender plants from the predations of the bower birds.

Silver Wattle features in Jack's neatly constructed bower. Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

The Forest Gallery at Melbourne Museum is now one of the only two places that the threatened shrub Shiny Nematolepis- Nematolepis wilsonii may be found.  Until Black Saturday, the only known wild population of this plant, totalling about 500 plants, was found in the Yarra Ranges National Park near Marysville.  As reported in The Age newspaper last Saturday, the entire population was burnt out in the Black Saturday bushfires.  This event outlines the importance of having separated populations to safeguard the ongoing survival of threatened plant or animal species.

Shiny Nematolepis shrub in the Forest Gallery Photo: Andrew Kuhlmann Source: Museum Victoria

Five young individual plants, grown from cuttings in 2000 are growing on display in the Forest Gallery while seedlings propagated at both the Melbourne and Cranbourne Botanic Gardens were recently planted out nearWoori Yallock.   The burnt out Nematolepis near Marysville are yet to show signs of regeneration after the fire, but the plants growing in at least two locations now make complete extinction less likely.

How do you display a cricket that prefers to spend much of its time underground? A new display in Bugs Alive provides a window into the burrow of a White Kneed King Cricket and visitors can light up the chamber at the press of a button.  The red light is outside the visible range of these insects and so ensures that the cricket isn't disturbed by the many visitors pressing the button to get a clear view.    The  White-kneed King Cricket Penalva flavocalceata has an impressive set of antennae, strong spiked rear legs and a formidable set of chompers.  The long spike at the rear end is not a sting- it's an ovipositor.  Females use their ovipositors to lay their eggs deep into the soil.

New burrow 'peep' display Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

White-kneed King Cricket Penalva flavocalceata Photo: Alan Henderson Source: Museum Victoria

The start of winter sees snakes in hibernation, and although the Alpine Copperheads can operate at cooler temperatures than lowland snakes, even they need to hibernate in the winter.  So while the snakes are hibernating in the back of house lab, the empty display in the Forest Gallery has been refitted to show some of the exquisite orchids of the tall mountain forests, which flower throughout the winter.  They are in full bud at the moment and ready to put on a show inside the glass display case- which incidentally protects the orchids from the rampaging Satin Bower Birds.  When we first put potted orchids on display in 2007, the bower birds used their razor sharp beaks to destroy the plants.  This year the birds will just get frustrated.

Orchids in bud, Forest Gallery Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Orange fungus emerging from a dead branch Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Small toadstools emerging from leaf litter Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Delicate and colourful fungi often sprout in the forest in May and June.  Today I took a few snaps of fungi emerging in the Forest Gallery.   Australia has an estimated 250,000 species of fungi, only 5% of which is formally identified, so you can appreciate that I don't know the names of these ones.  Some are extremely tiny and can only be spotted by people willing to get down on their hands and knees.  Fungi are the main recyclers of the forest ecosystem, returning nutrients from dead plant and animal material to the soil. 

Learn more about some of the more bizarre and unique fungi of the tall forests on the Forest Secrets website: http://museumvictoria.com.au/forest/plants/fungi.html

Many people are surprised to see the Myrtle Beech trees Nothofagus cunninghamii in the Forest Gallery shedding yellow leaves this autumn.  These trees are not considered fully deciduous however they do  shed older leaves in autumn which create a yellow leaf carpet more typical of northern hemisphere temperate forests.   A close relative Nothofagus gunii found only in Tasmania is the only native tree in Australia considered to be fully winter deciduous.  Australian trees in the genus Nothofagus are all relics of earlier wetter times.  These trees were once widespread across the supercontinent Gondwana and can still be found growing in parts of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and South America despite being separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean.  Fossil leaves excavated from Antarctica along with preserved examples of foliage from South American, New Zealand and Tasmanian Nothofagus are displayed in Forest Gallery.

Nothofagus cunninghamii autumn colours Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Yellow foliage in canopy Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Yellow leaves decorate the forest floor and pond Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

The month of May is well into Wombat season in the Kulin seasonal calendar of Victoria's Upper Yarra Valley- a time when lyrebirds are performing their courtship dances and wombats sometimes emerge during the daytime.  It's a cool time when mist cloaks the mountain valleys particularly in the mornings.  In the Forest Gallery our fogging system is now operating on days when the top temperature is below 18 degrees- at 11-12am and 2-3pm daily.  The fog promotes the growth of moisture-dependant ferns and suppresses pest activity by cooling the atmosphere in the gallery. The system pumps a small amount of water at high pressure through tiny nozzles to produce real fog. The fun part is the effect of swirling mist and the magical effect it produces amongst the cool temperate rainforest plants of the gallery.  The fog adds to the visitor experience as they wade through the mist or encounter it swirling into the underground tunnel from beneath the waterfall.  Make sure you visit before the weather starts warming up.

A visitor encounters fog as they enter the Forest Gallery. Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria