Museum Blogs
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Creature Feature – Stephenson’s Mantis Shrimp
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 3 days ago
Stephenson’s Mantis Shrimp, Harpiosquilla stephensoni Manning, 1969
Last week this 20 cm long monster was brought into the Museum by a curious member of the public who had managed to collect it while fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria. With lightning-quick reflexes, frighteningly long, sharp spines and incredible vision this is an animal not to be handled with bare hands!
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The Western Australian Museum Fish Collection
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 6 days ago
When most people think about natural history museums, they imagine galleries of exhibits – stuffed animals and a few jars of preserved critters with panels of information. These public exhibition spaces are important for museums because it is one of the ways we tell the stories of the world around us. However, most people don’t know that what you see on display is only a tiny fraction of the collection housed at the museum and public exhibitions are only a small part of the work of the museum.
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What's in a name?
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 3 weeks ago
As scientists we usually rely on a scientific name to describe a species. This is because, for the most part, each ‘type’ of fish has only a single, unique name. It is based on a binomial system, introduced by Linnaeus in 1753. Each name comprises two words: a Genus (capitalised and italicised) and a species (lower case and italicised) name. For example the humble Australian Herring is called Arripis georgianus.
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Notes about the WA Checklist of Terrestrial Vertebrates
0 MuseumCollections blog | Updated 1 month ago
In April 2012, we published our revised Western Australian Checklist for Vertebrate Fauna. There were a few questions about some of the details raised on Facebook and Twitter. This reply was written by Ornithology curator, Ron Johnstone in response to some of the birds listings in the checklist:
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Western Australian Salmon
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 1 month ago
Every Easter, hundreds of fishermen visit the south-west corner in the hope of catching a ‘salmon’. These are no ordinary ‘salmon’ – these are Western Australian Salmon Arripis truttaceus. It is an important distinction, because they are not true salmon, in fact not even vaguely related. They belong to a family of fishes (Arripidae) found only in Australia and New Zealand, and there are only four species. A sister-species, the eastern Australian Salmon Arripis trutta occurs in south-east Australia and New Zealand (where it is called Kahawai).
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This is our Dogumentary
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 1 month ago
This is our Dogumentary was a documentary produced as part of the Perth International Arts Festival created in partnership with ABC Open. The Western Australian Museum — Albany was proud to be associated with creation of this documentary, and invite you to see this piece about Albany's iconic Dog Rock.
This is our Dogumentary - http://open.abc.net.au/posts/this-is-our-dogumentary-95ft1iy
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Creature Feature – Toxic Crabs
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 1 month ago
Crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters and prawns are a major component of peoples’ diets around the world with eleven million tonnes caught or cultured annually. Despite a considerable diversity of crustacean species in Australia, only a handful of species are harvested as part of commercial or recreational fisheries. In Western Australia there are only about a half-dozen crab species that are commonly seen in seafood restaurants or fish markets, with the blue swimmer and mud crabs being the most common.
Harry Butler - Congratulations
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 2 months ago
Congratulations to Dr Harry Butler on his recent appointment as a National Living Treasure.
The National Trust of Australia (NSW)’s National Living Treasures list recognises 100 individuals who’ve made an outstanding contribution to society.
Harry is known for his tireless naturalist and conservation work, having played a major role in the conservation and restoration of Australia’s environment over the past 50 years.
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Creature Feature: Pandarus rhincodonicus
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 2 months ago
Even the biggest animals have fleas, and the mighty whale shark is no exception. Pandarus rhincodonicus, is a small crustacean, barely reaching one centimetre in length, belonging to a group of crustaceans known as copepods which are normally known to be free-living and a dominant group within planktonic communities. However, many species are bottom dwellers or parasites of other marine animals, particularly fish. Pandarus rhincodonicus was first discovered in WA and was only named and formally described in 2000.
Vanessa Kredler
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 3 months ago
UNESCO Program Specialist Vanessa Kredler gave a public lecture at UWA on Wednesday 29 February 2012 on the role of museums as agents for social change. This lecture was presented by UWA, with support form the WA Museum. You can hear her lecture through UWA's site: http://prod.lcs.uwa.edu.au:8080/ess/echo/presentation/23db7dfc-91ef-40ab-8b9c-64897e5d92d3
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Japanese Rubyfish - a new record for Western Australia
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 2 months ago
A photograph of an unusual fish was recently brought to our attention by fishermen on a popular WA-based fishing forum (www.fishwrecked.com). It certainly got us thinking, and after diving into the literature and speaking to colleagues, we are convinced that we have an exciting new record for WA. The fish is known as a Japanese Rubyfish Erythrocles schlegelii (Richardson in 1846), in the family Emmelichthyidae (bonnetmouths).
Creature Feature: Neopetrolisthes maculatus
0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 3 months ago
On the tropical reefs of Western Australia the stunning Neopetrolisthes maculatus is always found living on or around large sea anemones. Like the clown fish, these spotty little crabs are protected from potentail predators by the stinging tentacles of the sea anemone. Only a single pair of crabs can be found on each host as the crabs will defend their territory from rivals. Despite their impressive claws these are not used for capturing food, but are probably used fend off potential home invaders.
Dr. Harry Butler – a living treasure
0 MuseumCollections blog | Updated 3 months ago
Naturalist, conservationist and Western Australian Museum Fellow Dr. Harry Butler has been nominated for the prestigious National Trust's 100 National Living Treasures list.
Dr. Harry Butler is a long time supporter and the name bearer of the WA Museum’s Harry Butler Lecture Series In The Wild West.
The White Shark
0 MuseumFish blog | Updated 4 months ago
The White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias)
Large sharks
The White Shark, otherwise known as the Great White or White Pointer, is one of the largest sharks. There are only two species of sharks known to exceed the White Shark in size and both are plankton feeders; the Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) and the Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus).
Zoomify in HTML5 – implementation advice in Drupal 7
0 MuseumWeb blog | Updated 4 months ago
We wanted to use Zoomify (http://www.zoomify.com) on our site to show details of high resolution digitized imagery of collection items. However, Zoomify was built as a Flash application, and due to accessibility issues, we can’t use it as a Flash application.
However, Zoomify was nice enough to release a HTML5 version: http://www.zoomify.com/html5.htm - hooray! $30 and the problem is solved.
BUT (and there’s always a but) implementation into our Drupal 7 environment has a few issues when using the Drupal Zoomify module.
Creature Feature: Holy Crab! The crucifix crab Charybdis feriatus (Linneaus, 1758)
0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 5 months ago
This large and colourful species of swimming crab is wide ranging in the tropical Indo-West Pacific from East Africa the Persian Gulf through to Indonesia and Japan, and throughout most of Australia. The crucifix crab lives in shallow sandy or rocky areas. In parts of its range, such as India, the crucifix crab forms a substantial commercial and recreational fishery but in Australia this species is quite rare and isn’t caught in large numbers by Australian crabbers.
A visiting Mermaid
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 5 months ago
At Western Australian Museum - Shipwreck Galleries we have a visitor of the Mermaid kind. She's currently hanging out the front of the Museum, and you can get up close and personal at any time.
We've also hand a visit from Lake Gwelup Primary School - who enjoyed getting closer and having fun with this clever piece of art.
What's On at Festival Gardens for the Perth Festival
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 5 months ago
The WA Museum at Perth will be a host venue for the Perth Festival 2012.
We are very proud to be hosting the Festival Gardens, where for 22 nights there will be top international and national music acts performing on the Main Stage.
The following outlines the list of acts performing at Festival Gardens.
WA Maritime Museum ISAF 2011 - Open Day
0 MuseumPrograms blog | Updated 5 months ago
WA Maritime Museum invites you to join us as we enjoy ISAF 2011.
To celebrate this event, on 16 December 2011, the Museum invites you to enjoy the Museum with entry by donation - waving the usual entry fee (excludes Submarine Ovens), and there is a 20% discount on the ISAF merchandise.
On December 16 2011 the Women’s Match Racing Petit Finals and Finals will be held on the Harbour course. The Museum offers close vantage points to the shaded viewing stands, and excellent location to enjoy the action.
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'Design an Ad' winners announced.
0 Mus-ed blog | Updated 7 months ago
The West Australian's Newspapers in Education team recently ran their annual 'Design an Ad' competition. Staff at the Museum worked with two primary school-aged winners to develop their winning concept into a professional-style ad. To find out more about the competition, see photos of the children working on their concepts, as well as to view the final versions, please visit Students design WA Museum ads