Baby snakes by the dozen

Move over octuplets.  The Museum's female Alpine Copperhead Snake has produced her own brood of 12 offspring in the Live Exhibits back of house lab.  This is our first breeding success and will enable us to create a stable captive population to support the live snake display in Forest Gallery.  Some will be kept at the Museum but the other youngsters will be raised until they are feeding reliably and then will shared through Australia's zoos network with other institutions keen to display the species. 

The tiny newborn snakes are maintained in take away food containers for the first month or two. photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

A newborn snake is a small replica of its adult parents and is independent at birth. Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria

Giant water bugs in Bugs Alive!

Live Exhibits keepers have successfully bred Giant Water Bugs through from eggs to adults.  These formidably equipped pond predators typically prey upon pond insects and may be found in dams and creeks.  At the Museum we feed them on cockroaches and crickets which they suck dry with their piercing mouthparts.  Any filmmaker contemplating a sci-fi monster would do well to look closely at this impressive insect for inspiration.  Giant Water Bugs are now on display in Bugs Alive.

Giant Water Bug, Lethocerus insulanus. Photo: Alan Henderson Source: Museum Victoria

Black Saturday bushfires

Museum Victoria acknowledges the tragic loss of life associated with the horrific bushfires of February 7 2009.  The Museum marked the National Day of Mourning in the Forest Gallery, and is working to update the interpretation to reflect this latest black day in the history of the tall forests.  Bushfire is interpreted in the Forest Gallery as both a natural part of Mountain Ash forest lifecycle and as an agent of devastation for people caught in its path.  The Forest Secrets website provides more information on the bushfire history of Victoria's tall forests. Go to  Forest Secrets: Fire 

More than 200 people lost their lives in Black Saturday's horrific bushfires Photo: Luke Simpkin Source: Museum Victoria