1 Dec 2016
The Western Australian Museum is pleased to host the Sixth International Congress on Underwater Archaeology (IKUWA6) at the WA Maritime Museum this week.
Museum CEO Alec Coles said IKUWA (Internationaler Kongreß für Unterwasserarchäologie) is an independent, not-for-profit international network, and IKUWA6 is organised under the patronage of UNESCO and focuses on maritime archaeology.
29 Nov 2016
An online interactive documentary created by the Western Australian Museum and production company Periscope Pictures, together with interactive experience developers Hungry Sky, has won a 2016 SAE ATOM Award.
Beneath the Waves was announced as the ‘Best Educational/Training Video or Website (Primary/Secondary)’ at an awards ceremony in Melbourne.
Western Australian Museum CEO Alec Coles said the Beneath the Waves is the culmination of six years of marine biodiversity survey work in the Kimberley and more than a year of digital production design.
23 Nov 2016
Working at a museum involves a lot of time indoors. We spend hours looking down microscopes, reading papers, looking at DNA sequence data and databasing the collections. However, when we do get outside we get to visit some incredibly diverse and striking landscapes, seeking new species from every corner of the State. For many of us, this is why we study biodiversity: we feel drawn to these unexplored places and seek to discover species that have never been seen before.
22 Nov 2016
The Western Australian Museum will be displaying, playing and talking all things spiders – alongside a 50-tonne fire breathing spider at Elizabeth Quay this week.
The Museum’s spider encounter will take place inside the WA Museum’s inflatable museum for Arcadia Australia.
Arcadia – a spectacle of technology, performance, lasers and community activities – will make its Australian debut in Perth from tomorrow and thousands of people are expected to attend.
WA Museum CEO Alec Coles said it is a unique opportunity for people to get up close and personal with spiders.
21 Nov 2016
Learn to dance like a male peacock spider with the Western Australian Museum at Arcadia Australia, 23-24 November 2016
Learn more about Arcadia Australia here
Footage: Courtesy Project Maratus INC, Michael Duncan, Michael Doe and Adam Fletcher
Music: Beachfront Celebration – Latinesque by Kevin Macleod is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0
11 Nov 2016
East India House - the Amsterdam headquarters of the VOC, 17th century. Public Domain
4 Nov 2016
An exhibition featuring exquisite photos and oral histories of indigenous people from Western Australia, Indonesia and Southern Africa who claim Dutch heritage through adventurers visiting their shores, opens this Saturday at the Museum of Geraldton (previously the WA Museum – Geraldton).
2 Nov 2016
An exhibition featuring historic objects made by Albany’s Menang people nearly 200 years ago opens at the Museum of the Great Southern (previously the WA Museum – Albany) today.
31 Oct 2016
The Western Australian Museum is pleased to announce that its special exhibition, Travellers and Traders in the Indian Ocean World, was officially opened today by Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.
The exhibition is one of the Museum’s many contributions to the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the first European contact with Western Australia, when Dutchman Dirk Hartog landed at what is now Cape Inscription.
31 Oct 2016
In February 1697 the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh arrived off Shark Bay. On Dirk Hartog Island a landing party found an old flattened pewter dish lying in the sand at the base of a tall wooden post. On the dish was inscribed a record of the first landfall on the Western Australian coast, by the Dutch navigator Dirk Hartog, in 1616. Recognising the significance of the dish, de Vlamingh took it to Batavia (modern Djakarta) and in its place left a dish of his own, nailed to a new post.
19 Oct 2016
The paddle steamer Xantho, one of the world’s first iron ships, was built in 1848 by Denny’s of Dumbarton in Scotland. Like most 19th century steamships, Xantho was driven by both sails and steam. In 1871, after 23 years of Scottish coastal service, Xantho was sold to Robert Stewart, ‘Metal Merchant’ (scrap metal dealer) of Glasgow. Rather than cut it up for scrap, he removed the old paddle wheel machinery and replaced it with a ten-year-old propeller engine built by the famous naval engineers John Penn and Sons of Greenwich.
17 Oct 2016
Only six months after one of the worst summers in history for coral bleaching, a new coral reef biodiversity and health survey suggests some of Australia’s most biologically important fringing reef communities in the central Kimberley remain intact.
A team of Western Australian Museum and Curtin University researchers accompanied by Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation's Uunguu Rangers have just returned from a seven-day survey of coral reefs in the Bonaparte Archipelago.
27 Sep 2016
Recent WA Museum-led research has described three new gecko species – the smallest geckos to be found in Australia.
Geckos are a type of lizard found in warm climates all over the world. There are about 1500 species of gecko worldwide, most of which are nocturnal and lack eyelids.
The Cape Range Clawless Gecko (Crenadactylus tuberculatus) is Australia’s smallest gecko, reaching just over 4cm in length, including the tail.
23 Sep 2016
Come and explore the Western Australian Museum’s new Discovery Zone, now open at the State Library of Western Australia in the heart of the Perth Cultural Centre.
The new Discovery Zone is an exciting space created especially for the young and the curious. Touch and see objects from across Western Australia and around the world as you learn about dinosaur trackways, meteorites and our amazing night sky.
20 Sep 2016
Earlier this year, Western Australian Museum Technical Officer (Molluscs) Corey Whisson and fellow scientist Dr Abraham Breure published a research article called "A new species of Bothriuembryon (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Bothriembryontidae) from south-eastern Western Australia" in ZooKeys.
19 Sep 2016
On 15 September the Western Australian Museum Head of Maritime Archaeology Jeremy Green was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Western Australia for service to maritime archaeology. He also gave the graduation address on the night for the arts faculty.
19 Sep 2016
Visitor Services Officer
My name is Amanda Marchese and I am a Visitor Services Officer at the WA Maritime Museum and Shipwreck Galleries.
After graduating high school in 2005, I took a year off to work and save before beginning my studies at TAFE, completing a Certificate III in Tourism (Operations) and a Certificate III in Tourism (International Retail Travel Sales) over a period of two years.
15 Sep 2016
Dr Shino Konishi Senior Lecturer, History Department The University of Western Australia
9 Sep 2016
The Western Australian Museum continues its search for a possible fifth Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipwreck, believed to have been lost at the Abrolhos Islands off the Mid West coast around 300 years ago, working alongside celebrated wreck-hunter and author Hugh Edwards.
