These unique clay-masks, known as holosa (‘spirit’), are made by the Komunive community from the Asaro Valley, Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. 

Holosa have changed over the years. The first holosa were made of traditional string bags (bilum) and were worn my male warriors during tribal warfare to intimidate their enemies. Later, until the early 1960s, masks were made of clay over a bamboo frame. Since then, masks have been made entirely of clay. 

Only senior men can create the fearsome facial expressions of the masks. Once dried, men don the masks, rub white ugutu clay on their bodies and elongate their fingers with sharpened, pointed bamboo. They then re-enact – in ghostly, slow-motion movement and playing bamboo flutes or carrying spears, bows and arrows – the performance still intended to instil fear. 

In 1957, a large Komunive group of 60 men wearing holosa and with bodies covered in clay generated panic among the crowd at the first Agricultural show in Goroka. Since then, the now-famous Asaro mud-men performances have become one of the highlights of the yearly show and an ‘intercultural phenomenon’ that reflects how communities respond to aspects of modernisation and globalisation.

The Australian Museum acquired the masks as part of a collaborative project with the Komunive community, filmmakers from the University of Goroka and the JFK McCarthy Museum (Goroka). Integral to the project was the inclusion of the indigenous makers' perspectives in the process of making the objects and bringing their own newly produced cultural objects to the Museum – creating the first holosa collection for a major oversees cultural institution and a repository of Komunive cultural tradition for future generations.

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The Mekong River flows through six Asian countries, and is a region of thick rainforests, mountains and rocky streams – rich in biodiversity, but difficult to explore.

During scientific expeditions to the region, Australian Museum scientist Dr Jodi Rowley and her team search the forest by torchlight for frogs- to gather information on known species and discover new ones. So far, Jodi and her team have discovered more than 20 species of frog from this region.

Appleby’s Leaf-litter Frog was the first species to be discovered by Dr Rowley and her team- a tiny frog living at the headwaters of streams in the remote mountains of central Vietnam. Other remarkable discoveries include a huge, green flying frog, named Helen’s Flying Frog – after Dr Rowley’s mother – and Quang’s Tree Frog, a tiny, almost-transparent frog splashed with vivid turquoise and yellow patterns. The call of this frog species is unique- with so many variations of clicks, whistles and chirps that no-one has ever heard two identical calls.

Unfortunately, deforestation is threatening the frogs of the Greater Mekong, and many of these newly discovered frogs are already perched on the edge of extinction. It’s a race against time to discover and help conserve the amazing amphibians of the Greater Mekong region before they disappear.

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Frogs from the Greater Mekong region include:
Appleby’s Asian Leaf-litter Toad, Leptolalax applebyi

Helen’s Flying Frog, Rhacophorus helenae

Vampire Flying Frog, Rhacophorus vampyrus
Botsford’s Asian Leaf-litter Toad, Leptolalax botsfordi 

These spirit masks, from the Orokolo coast of Papua New Guinea, were some of the earliest ethnographic objects collected by the Australian Museum in the 1880s. 

Initiates among the Elema people wore these masks in kovave or kaiva kuku initiation ceremonies. The masks also incorporated clan totems, such as a fish, bird or turtle. 

The masks cover the entire head and the torso to the waist and incorporate clan totems such as fish, birds and turtles – as well as strange found objects, including lamps.

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Kovave spirit masks
Barkcloth, pigment, coconut fibre
Elema people, Orokolo coast, PNG
Collected 1880’s - 1915

B002185, 6, 7, 8 and E022244, E023153, E026260

This beautiful, intricate painting on cloth depicts a key scene from the Hindu epic The Ramayana. 

After a long captivity at the hands of the demonic king Rawana, the goddess Sita has finally been reunited with her husband Rama. Rama doubts that Sita has remained faithful throughout their long separation, and so Sita, in order to demonstrate her fidelity, jumps onto a burning pyre. Sita is protected because of her purity and the fire transforms her into a lotus – which is seen at the centre of the painting floating on a pool of water.

This painting was probably created by Kaka Loui (about 1860-1930) in Kamasan, Bali, in the early 20th century. The Australian Museum holds a number of classical temple paintings like this, collected by anthropologist Anthony Forge in the 1970s, which now form one of the most important collections of this kind in the world.

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Painting of Sita’s Fire Ordeal
Paint on cloth
Kamasan, Bali, early 20th century
Collected by Anthony Forge 1970s, registered 1976

E074160

These sacred hats or upes are worn by young male initiates in Bougainville to protect their growing hair throughout their long initiation. 

Initiation begins when the boys are ten years old and they are sent to live together in a secluded area in the forest. They are forbidden any contact with females, including their mothers and sisters, so that they learn the skills and knowledge they will need when they reach manhood. it is believed that breaking the taboos will bring curses, sickness and death to the individuals involved.

The hats are woven from the thick, fibrous leaves of the pandanus plant, dyed red with a water-based dye.

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Upe hats
Pandanus, red dye
Buka Island, Northern Bougainville
Collected between 1918 and 1949

E052731, E063238, E025012

This collection of fish from southern Asia was created by Francis Day, a pioneering ichthyologist and the Inspector General of Fishes in India and Burma in the 1880s.

In 24 years of study, Day named 343 species of marine and freshwater fish, from across an area that extends from Afghanistan to Myanmar/Burma. 

There were very close connections between Australia and India in the 1880s through the International Exhibition movement, leading to many exchanges of specimens and knowledge.

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Indian fish specimens from the Francis Day collection
India and Burma
Acquired 1883

This two-circle reflecting goniometer is the most advanced tool of its type ever made. Goniometers were first made in the 16th century, and are used to precisely measure angles.

In mineralogical and crystallographic studies, the instrument is used for precise measurement of angles between often-minute faces of crystals and to rotate those faces into view, greatly enhancing a scientist’s ability to describe and identify minerals and make crystal drawings

This goniometer was used by the Australian Museum scientist Charles Anderson – who later became the Museum’s Director – to complete his PhD in morphological crystallography and the chemistry of Australian minerals. This kind of analysis had never before been applied to the often-unique minerals found in Australian soil.

Goniometers were superseded by new technologies within a short time, but this particular instrument was still used by scientists at the Australian Museum until the late 1980s.

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Two-Circle (Theodolite) Reflecting Goniometer
Brass,  cast iron & optical glass
Designed & made by P Stoe in Heidelberg to the design of Victor Goldschmidt in 1900
Acquired 1907

MA00097

Charles Melbourne (Mel) Ward was a polymath, who started his career captivating audiences on the stage as an acrobatic dancer and comedian. Yet, since boyhood, the talented thespian had also been fascinated by crabs.

After discovering a new species on a Queensland beach – which was named after him by the American Museum of Natural History – he left the stage and became an Honorary zoologist at the Australian Museum in 1929.

After his death in 1966, his substantial collection of around 25,000 crabs was bequeathed to the museum. Recently, the museum’s Digital Volunteer program catalogued a large portion of the collection online, making Ward’s important contribution accessible to audiences across the world.

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Specimens collected by Melbourne Ward c1926–1966
Marine Invertebrate collection

Bark belts are worn by men in the Papuan Gulf and in the Highlands for protection and as marker of status. The bark is shaped when still green by heating the bark and placing it around the waist several times. Once it is secured, it is easy to wear because of its light weight. They are decorated with pigments, fibre and shells. 

The Australian Museum’s collection of bark belts from Papua New Guinea was collected over a 100-year period, from several regions across the area. 

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Bark, shell pigments
Various regions of PNG
Collected 1883 to 1980s

E036978, A015860

Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka were a father and son team from Dresden who crafted exquisite glass models of sea creatures.
In the 1870s, when these models were made, the rudimentary methods of preserving soft-bodied marine creatures were unable to prevent specimens from distorting and losing their vibrant colour. Instead, models made of wax and paper pulp – as well as glass – were used for display in museums across the world.

The Blaschkas often used book illustrations as references when creating their models, and were renowned for the spectacular, detailed finishes – the coating and the painting – with which they captured the delicate structure and luminescence of living marine creatures. Their models are often tiny, exquisitely crafted and always extraordinarily beautiful.

Although the models are of limited educational value today – many of them are anatomically incorrect or cannot be identified as species – their worth resides in their provenance, their artistry, and the part they play in the history of exhibition and display in the Museum.

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Blaschka glass models
Made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, Germany, 1879-1883
Purchased by Australian Museum in 1883
AMS 582 Archives

This enigmatic wooden figure has a fascinating history, both culturally and as a collection item. Charles Melbourne Ward (1903–1966), a well-known Australian naturalist and collector, donated this figure to the Museum in the 1970s. Ward had purchased it from James Tyrell (1875–1961), a prominent book seller, publisher, art-dealer and significant figure in Australian literary circles. Tyrell himself acquired it in Bali in the 1930s, during a time when the influx of artists, tourists and anthropologists created a new art market, including replicas and ‘curios’.

This figure was probably made in the late 19th or early 20th century, before the art market and related production became an important feature of Balinese culture and economy, offering plentiful supply to many private and public collections in the West. The carving was likely intended as a functional rather than an art piece. Such figures would have been placed at a temple or home as part of ritualistic ‘decorum’ in the Javanese-Hindu tradition.

Arjuna is one of the central protagonists in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, which has its Javanese/Balinese equivalent. One of the oldest surviving Kakawin literature (‘long narrative poem’ in Old Javanese) is Arjuna Wiwaha, written in the 11th century. It centres on an episode from Arjuna’s life when he successfully defended gods against evil forces and restored the stability of the universe. Arjuna was a son of a god Indra and a mortal women Kunti. The various episodes from his life are some of the favourite stories in shadow puppet plays, dance-theatre performances, paintings and other visual arts.

Figure of Arjuna

Wood, pigment

Bali, late 19th or early 20th century

Australian Museum Collection E69946, donated by Melbourne Ward

The Tasmanian Cave Spider weaves spectacular sheet webs, which may be more than a metre in width. These webs often hang across the mouths of caves, or in hollow logs or the undersides of bridges.

The spider hangs from the vast web by its unusually long legs, waiting for prey to fall into its trap.

The Tasmanian Cave Spider is a major predator in cave systems, but is also important because it has some primitive features typical of the earliest spiders to evolve.

They have four abdominal lungs – called book lungs – which appear as four light patches on the underside of the abdomen, and jaws that open and close sideways. They grow to up to two centimetres long.

Become a part of history as a member of the Treasures Circle through pledging your support for this treasure: an exhibition interactive to create a Cave Spider Web.

Tasmanian Cave Spider Hickmania troglodytes

The colonial steamer Thetis was ill-equipped for its exploratory voyage, rolling heavily as it trawled the waters from Jervis Bay to the Manning River in 1898, collecting samples of fish and invertebrates. 

Despite the vessel’s shortcomings, the expedition was eagerly followed by the public of the colony and was a great scientific success. 

The Australian Museum Curator of Fishes, Edgar Waite, collected over 1850 samples, representing 450 species. Among these, 6 fish and over 100 invertebrates were previously unknown to science. A crab, a snail and a sponge were all named in honour of Waite’s achievement. 

Today, the Thetis collection continues to be studied by scientists with new species being described from the collection as recently as 2005. The samples offer a snapshot of the environment from more than 100 years ago, and the expedition remains an important moment in the development of the Museum’s collection.

Specimens collected from the Thetis expedition 1898
Octocoral Pseudoplumarella corruscans
Starfish Sclerasterias dubia
Spider crab Leptomithrax waitei

When larval fish hatch from eggs – usually in open water, far from the reefs in which they will live as adults – they are only a few millimetres long. Also, they are also often so different in appearance and behaviour from their fully-grown counterparts that is it difficult for scientists to match fish larvae to their adult species.

Despite their miniscule size, a 1cm-long fish larva can swim more than a kilometre in one hour or 28 body lengths per second, can use sound to navigate and odour to find specific habitat to settle on.

Research into the habits of these baby fish, by scientists based at the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station, is important for determining how fisheries and marine parks should be designed and operated, to ensure the future vitality of reef fish populations.

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Up until the 1920s, the Lampung province of Sumatra had a vibrant weaving tradition in which coloured silk or cotton threads were woven into a plainer background in distinctive and often intricate designs. 

Some of these textiles are known as ‘shipcloths’ because ships were a popular motif symbolising the transition from one stage of life to the next – to adulthood, to married life or to the afterlife. The cloths were used in ceremonies involving these transitions, such as birth, circumcision, tooth filing, weddings and funerals.

This ‘Palepai tampan' shipcloth was made using hand-spun cotton, natural dyes and metallic-wrapped thread. The depicted ship has a central pavilion with four human figures; more figures are at the stern and bow. Other common designs, such as diamonds, suggest a Buddhist cultural influence amongst the Lampung weavers. It is estimated that the earliest cloths date to the eighteenth century, although the tradition could well be much older.

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Krui, Lampung province, Sumatra, Indonesia
Made probably early 20th century

Purchased in 1977 from Vern Cork
60x270cm

E074960

The sturdy and beautiful olla baskets were made by the Western Apache people to store food and other dry goods. They are woven from the fibres of willow trees and the strong, thorned wood of a plant known as ‘devil’s claw’, both of which are native to Central Arizona in the USA. 

This basket is remarkable both for its size – it is estimated that an olla of this capacity would have taken up to a year to complete – and its intricate design. The design includes motifs of animals, probably coyotes or wolves, and criss-crossing triangular and cruciform shapes, with strong vertical lines that contrast the horizontal weave of the basket itself.

This basket was donated to the Museum in 1950 and was probably made around 1900.

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Olla basket
Coiled willow fibre with Devil’s claw plant and Yucca root dye
Natanes Plateau, Arizona, United States of America, about 1900

Donated by Mrs A B Golby, 1950

The Luba people of the Katanga region, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, were part of a strong kingdom formed in Central Africa some 500 years ago. The region was rich in natural resources and developed strong industries in palm oil cultivation, copper mining and fishing; these supported the powerful state. The Luba people resisted colonialisation until 1917, despite Belgium’s conquest of the Congo region in 1885.

In the 19th century, the kingdom’s fortunes declined through foreign intrusions and the infamous slave trade. However, the renowned craft of wood carving endured to the early 20th century. The Luba people were famous as wood carvers and artisans, and this bow stand is an excellent example of their artistry. The carved figure of a woman, which supports the stand, symbolises the role of woman as the creator of the world. 

This striking, carved wooden bow stand would have belonged to a high chief of the Luba people of Katanga. Only the highest chiefs were permitted to represent the female figure on bow stands, alluding to ancient beliefs and symbolism of political hierarchy.

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Bow stand with female figure
Carved wood, twine
Luba people, Katanga, now Congo, pre 1911. Purchased in 1912 from G G P Lyons

E019552

In 1910, American entrepreneur Colonel John Stacey brought a group of Native Canadian performers to Australia for a ‘Wild West'-style show. When the venture failed, their costumes were sold to help performers returning to Canada. An incidental artefact dealer Frank Wilkes sold the costumes to the Australian Museum in 1912. 

The artefacts had been made for traditional and ceremonial use at a time when the Canadian government was trying to stamp out indigenous cultural practices. In 1987, the Australian Museum began working with the Canadian Museum of Civilisation and representatives of the Kwakwakak’wakw people to return some of these rare artefacts so that the Kwakwakak’wakw could reclaim the important symbols of their culture. In return for repatriated costumes, the Australian Museum received a series of artefacts commissioned from Calvin Hunt, a highly regarded Kwakwakak’wakw artist. 

The masks are integral to the ritual demonstration of wealth and status – known as potlatch – and are part of the intricate and brightly coloured costumes worn during ceremonies.

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Raven head mask
Wood, paint and hair
Cape Mudge Kwakwakak’wakw people, Vancouver, Canada, 1912

E021534

Echo mask made by Calvin Hunt 1993

E089729

Wickerwork shields become extremely fragile as they age because the woven plant materials that form the body of the shield are far more flexible than the resin and shells that decorate the top. This means that as the body of the shields bend and flex, the resin often cracks, and so it is very difficult to conserve these beautiful and exquisitely patterned objects.

Only about twenty woven wicker shields like this one exist in museum collections across the world. All originate from the Florida and Santa Isabel Islands.

The shields are small and elliptical, adorned with small squares of nautilus shell commonly in a motif of an elongated ancestor figure surrounded by abstract designs and faces. It is unlikely that they were used in combat – rather, they were owned by high-status individuals and traded to Europeans as gifts of exchange.

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Wicker work shield
Wicker, shell inlay
Florida Island, Solomon Islands
Collected in 1901 and acquired via exchange with the Technology Museum, 1918 

E025422

This specimen of the notorious Sydney Funnel-web Spider  was responsible for the first human death ever recorded by this species.

In February 1927, a toddler sitting on the laundry steps of a house in Thornleigh was bitten on the little finger. It is suspected the child was trying to crush the spider in his hand, which is why this specimen is somewhat squashed.

Funnel-web spiders grow up to 3.5 cm in length. They live in cool and humid burrows beneath logs and rocks, across which they spin silken triplines to alert them to the presence of prey.

Although they are one of the most venomous species of spider in the world, there have been no fatalities from Sydney Funnel-web Spider bites since the introduction of antivenom.

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Sydney funnel-web Spider, Atrax robustus

Barkcloth or siapo is a traditional fabric made from the bark of native fig and mulberry trees across the Pacific. In Samoa,  siapo was and is a central part of the culture. Traditionally, barkcloth was used for clothing, as well as to make blankets, wall decorations, in ceremonial exchanges and for ceremonial masks and wrappings. It is often still worn and exchanged as gifts on formal occasions, such as weddings.

Captain Cook was the first European to collect barkcloth – from Tahiti and the Cook Islands – and introduce it to the rest of the world. 

In Samoa barkcloth is usually highly decorated with geometric patterns of grids and squares interspersed with motifs of fish, leaves and plants. The patterns are dyed in lustrous black and brown paints, which retain their colour and sheen for many years.

This siapo is part of the Australian Museum’s extensive collection of Polynesian barkcloth and is in exceptional condition despite being over 130 years old.

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Barkcloth siapo
Mulberry tree, black and brown dyes
Samoa
Collected by Mrs I. Hetherington, 1886

B009979

This skull of a horned tortoise – Meiolania platyceps – comes from Lord Howe Island, where the extinct species was discovered in 1886. The horned tortoise looked similar to the unrelated ankylosaurs and it grew to almost 2.5 m long.

The horns on its skull meant that it was unable to fully retract its head into its shell as other turtles and tortoises can do. This skull is from the Pleistocene and is about 100,000-120,000 years old.

The skull of this specimen was damaged when it was excavated in 1979 – resulting in the hole at the top left side of the fossil.

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Skull of horned tortoise Meiolania platyceps
Lord Howe Island, excavated 1980
Pleistocene
F64471

This funerary post from Buka Island in Bougainville was collected by the German ethnologist Richard Parkinson, who was a long-term resident of Bougainville, as well as a plantation owner, trader and avid collection. Parkinson was married to an American-Samoan princess, Phebe, and together they collected about 10,000 objects for the Australian Museum and institutions in Germany and Chicago.

The stylised human figure on the funerary post represents an ancestor figure known as Kokorra and was used only by the highest-ranking chiefs of Buka Island and northern parts of Bouganville. It is only these chiefs who were allowed to wear the circular ornament – the paparaha – depicted on the figure’s chest. Kokorra were used in rituals concerning birth, initiation, weddings and deaths.

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Funerary post
Wood, pigment
Buka Island, Bougainville

Collected by Captain T Farrell and R Parkinson, late 1880s

B008892

These beautiful and skillfully-crafted fishing hooks are made from a remarkable variety of natural materials including seashells, turtle shell, abalone and bone, as well as twine woven from plant fibres.

They were collected by Captain Cook on his Pacific voyages between 1768 and 1779, and were acquired by the Australian Museum in 1894.

The hooks vary greatly in size and shape, reflecting the different sea creatures they were designed to lure and catch, and are testament to the Pacific fishermen’s knowledge of their environment and its natural resources.

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Fishing hooks from Tahiti, Society Islands and New Zealand

Pearl shell, turtle shell, fibre, bone, wood
Collected on voyages of Captain James Cook 1768-1779
Acquired 1894

H000134, H136, H138, H329, H386

The siltstone of fossil-bearing rocks in Talbragar, about 30 km northeast of Gulgong, NSW, is a remnant of sediments from a high-altitude freshwater late of the Jurassic era, 205 – 141 million years ago. 

Since the fossils were first discovered in 1889, over 25 species of ancient animals and plants have been uncovered at the site. This includes eight species of fish fossils, and a species of plant closely related to the Wollemi pine.

These fossils were formed when the remains of fish were buried in the muds at the bottom of the lake. They are typically white in colour, making a strong contrast to the brown or yellow rock that surrounds them.

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Fossil fish Leptolepis gregarius (Woodward, 1895)
Talbragar Jurassic fossil site, NSW

F120496

These miniature models are scaled-down replicas of craft made by Papua New Guinean fishers, hunters and travellers. 

Intricately constructed of wood and natural fibres, they were usually made as educational models for boat-builders and their apprentices, although some were crafted especially as gifts for anthropologists and tourists.

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Canoe models
Wood and fibres
Papua New Guinea

PUN01152

Funafuti is a small coral atoll in Tuvalu, first visited by Europeans in 1819. The geologist Tannatt William Edgeworth David led an expedition to the atoll in 1896, which aimed to take deep core samples from the coral, to test Darwin’s theory about the formation of coral reefs and atolls.

Darwin was the first scientist to hypothesise that coral reefs are made of living coral polyps growing on the calcified remains of their dead counterparts, and so the drilling conducted by the team sought to find traces of living organisms in the samples they extracted.

The boreholes on the site still exist on Funafuti, and are known as ‘Darwin’s Drill’ by Tuvaluans.

Alongside these core samples, the expedition also collected a number of cultural and natural specimens, including a series of photographs of local people, customs and communities.

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Core samples from Funafuti reef, Funafuti, Tuvalu 1897
 

Between the 15th and 17th centuries, the Roviana Lagoon of New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands, was a regional centre of power and trade. New Georgia was colonised by the British in the late 19th century. The emergence of this more realistic carving style could have been a response to how Solomon Islanders viewed and represented themselves during this new period of colonisation. 

The figures – of a mother and child – are depicted in a much more realistic style than traditional Solomon carving. The young boy has much paler skin than the woman who is cradling him and may represent a local light-skinned baby (certain Solomon’s youth naturally have blonde hair) or a child of a white settler with his nanny.

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Mother and child
Wood, paint, fibre, shell, glass
Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia group,Western province, Solomon Islands
Donated by Melbourne Ward, 1920s
Registered 1979

E073924

This vibrant strange-looking marine creature, also known as a Weedy Seadragon, is one of only three seadragon species found in Australia. While the species are found in the country’s temperate southern waters, only the Common Seadragon is found in Sydney Harbour.  

Seadragons are related to the seahorses but unlike seahorses they do not have a pouch for rearing the young. Instead, male seadragons carry the eggs fixed to the underside of the tail. Their resemblance to the mythical dragon adds to their romantic allure.  

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Common Seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus

Tutini or funerary poles have great spiritual significance to the Tiwi people; the poles ensure  the spirit of a deceased person is released from the physical body into the spirit world. The Pukumani ceremony is performed at a person’s burial site where participants, painted in white ochre, express their grief through song and dance.

At the end of the ceremony tunga, or painted bark baskets, are placed on top of the poles as gifts for the spirits of the dead. This special collection of tunga, collected between 1912 and 1977, is painted in ochre with geometric designs symbolising specific clans and sites. 

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Tunga (bark buckets)
Bark, pigment, plant fibre
Bathurst and Melville Islands, Northern Territory
Acquired 1927-1977
E030906, E031248, E042590, E057200, E057201, E075569

Lungfish are named for their ability to breathe air by coming to the surface when water quality is low or becomes stagnant. The Australian lungfish is unique in having only a single lung – all other species have a pair.

Lungfish can grow to 1.5 m in length, and 40 kg in weight. The Australian Lungfish was first identified as a species by the Australian Museum Curator Gerard Krefft when he was served it at a dinner in 1870!

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On a country road in Canowindra in 1955 a bulldozer turned over a rock that had been buried for 360 million years. Shortly afterwards, a local resident recognised its signifigance and informed the Australian Museum. Since then, a further 4000 fish specimens across eight fish species have been excavated. The Canowindra fossil fauna is now listed as part of Australia's National Heritage because of its international scientific importance - it is a national treasure!                                                                              

The fossils are dated to the Upper or Late Devonian (382-359 million years ago) and dominated by two species of antiarch placoderms (or armoured fishes), Bothriolepis and Remigolepis (97 per cent of the fauna). Groenlandaspis, an arthrodiran placoderm, is much rarer, with only about 50 specimens recovered. The sarcopterygians (lobe-finned fishes) are even rarer, with the remains of approximately 20 individuals so far noted.

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Canowindra, New South Wales, Upper Devonian
 382-359 million years ago

Images of fossils found at Canowindra, and Alex Ritchie, on site July 1993, with newly discovered Groenlandaspis specimen.

Made from split lengths of cane, eel traps were used by Aboriginal people of the Murray-Darling River areas of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales long before European settlement.

The trap was constructed using a unique coiled weaving technique. The woven, basket-like net was then concealed in a specially-built underwater rock wall. Unable to swim backwards, eels would become trapped in the coil as they made their way through it in time with the natural flow of the water.

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Eel trap
Plant fibre
Darling River, New South Wales
Acquired 1935

E039598

This polished, richly hued slice of jasperised wood is from the Petrified Forest National Park which covers parts of Navajo and Apache Counties in north-east Arizona, USA. In particular it is from the Chinle Formation, which is tinted by iron oxides. . 

It is wood turned into stone, and was formed after the forest became buried under volcanic ash. The original tree, an Araucarioxylon arizonicum, grew in the Late Triassic about 225 million years ago. Volcanic eruptions in that age resulted in ash-rich sediments which covered the area. 

The settled ash sealed and protected the wood from oxidisation, and in turn from decomposition. Silica leached from the sediments, infiltrated the wood and recast it cell by cell from cellulose to silica in a process known as permineralisation. 

The item was purchased in 1984 at the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase for display in the Planet of Minerals Gallery, but has since been removed. 

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Jasper
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA
Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago

D.47884

These humble but beautiful dolls, made of shells wrapped in cloth, belonged to children living at Hemple Bay, on Groote Eylandt, in 1948.

Both boys and girls played with the dolls, which often represented different family members – larger shells representing parents and smaller shells standing in for children.

The dolls were collected by anthropologist Fred McCarthy during the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, an ambitious and arduous nine-month expedition across an incredibly remote region.

During the expedition, which was then one of the largest to have ever taken place in Australia, seventeen scientists collected tens of thousands of specimens, artefacts and paintings, representing a significant contribution to our understanding of the natural and cultural history of the Arnhem Land region.

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Shell dolls
Shell, cloth
Hemple Bay, Groote Eylandt, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
Collected 1948 by Fred McCarthy
From left E053105-011, E053105-001, E053105-015, E053105-012, E053105-008, E053105-018

These skillfully crafted dilly bags were made by Bandjalang women and were designed to be worn around the neck when gathering food. Dilly bags are woven from the tough fibres of vines and dried grasses, occasionally lined with animal fur to prevent small grains and seeds from falling through the holes in the weave.

These dilly bags were collected by Mary Bundock, who spent a great deal of time with the Bandjalang women in the late 19th century.

Her collection of baskets and dilly bags was shown at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 – the first world fair to be held in the southern hemisphere, in the beautiful Garden Palace – and represents one of the most comprehensive collections of Indigenous artefacts from the north coast of New South Wales.

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Dilly bag
Plant fibre
Wyangari, Richmond River, New South Wales
Collected by Mary Bundock and donated to Australian Museum 1895

E005076

After a shipwreck introduced rats to Lord Howe Island in 1918, it was assumed that the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect became extinct.

There were only two sightings of the creature across the rest of the twentieth century, both of dead specimens collected from Ball’s Pyramid, an inhospitable rock 23 km south-east of Lord Howe Island.

In 2001, a team including scientists from the Australian Museum went in search of living stick insects, eventually climbing the narrow ledges of Ball’s Pyramid by night – the species is nocturnal – and discovering three living specimens.

A captive breeding program to bolster the numbers of Lord Howe Island Stick Insect is underway, eventually to reintroduce them to their island home.

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Lord Howe Island phasmid, Dryococelus australis

This is a very distinctive wooden mask from before the 1880s, when the full impact of missionary zeal changed the Torres Strait people forever.

It is made from a combination of a wooden human face with a human hair wig, pearl shell eyes and decorated with cassowary feathers, beads, pigment and cotton. Masks like this were said to be used in harvest ceremonies. This specimen was collected by Captain Liljeblad while he captained the London Missionary Society schooner Ellengowen in 1885.

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Mask
Wood, pigment, hair, shell
Torres strait
Purchased from Captain Liljeblad, 1885

B006185

The Dari headdress became the emblem of the Torres Strait Islands in 1992, when its stylised outline was revealed as the centrepiece of the newly-designed Torres Strait Islander flag. The headdress is made from bamboo and plant fibres and the beautiful, creamy-white feathers of the Torres Strait pigeon. Headdresses like this were worn mostly by fierce tribal warriors of the region.

This headdress was collected from Mer, or Murray Island, which is best known as the land that was contested in the Mabo case, the first successful Indigenous land rights claim handed down in 1992. This ruling was the first to recognise the rights of the Meriam people to their lands, which had been annexed by the State of Queensland in 1879.

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Dari headdress
Bamboo, plant fibre, feathers, pigment
Mer (Murray Islands) Torres strait
Collected by C Hedley and AR McCulloch, 1907

E017264

Dance boards are used by Warlpiri women in ceremonies related to women’s Dreaming. Made by men, the boards are covered with oil, and then painted by the women with important symbols. The women sing and dance with the boards in both hands.

The boards were made for a special performance at the Australian Museum in 1982 and were the first pieces of Indigenous women’s art to be recognised as art by an Australian cultural institution.

These boards were painted by various women, all members of the Papunya Tula Art Movement which began in 1970 and uses traditional symbols of body and sand painting, often replacing ochre paints with acrylics.

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Dance boards
Mulga wood, acrylic paint
Yuendumu, Northern Territory
Acquired 1982

From left: E078355, E077956, E077960, E078358, E078301, E078286, E078397, E078292, E078295, E078318, E078336, E078403

This jacket is made of barkcloth, a versatile and beautifully textured cloth made by beating and gluing the bark, usually from mulberry trees, into thick, strong sheets. 

It was made by the Kenyah people of Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), who were one of the most powerful tribes on the island at the time this object was collected. Anthropologist Charles Seligman collected the jacket when he was conducting fieldwork in Borneo as part of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition in 1898-99.

Barkcloth is easily damaged with wear because the fibres of the cloth often lose their strength and cohesion when wet, so it is very rare for a bark jacket like this one to survive in such a remarkable condition.

The use of clothing made of bark was gradually replaced across the Pacific when textile weaving, and then factory-made fabric, was introduced to the region, probably through Chinese and Indian influences.

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Bark jacket
Kenyah people Kalimantan, Indonesia
Donated by Charles Seligman, 1899 

E08607

The ability to record the natural world has been an essential part of the evolution of science. In the earliest times, scientists were dependant on their own eyes and hands. Today, scientists have access to an increasing array of vital technologies that allow us to look at nature in entirely new ways and make the Museum's collections ever more valuable for research.

This digital media exhibit features images of specimens taken using scanning electron microscopes (SEM), x-rays, micro-CT scans, light microscopes and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Each technology creates a different type of image used for different purposes; whether providing a level of detail that assists with identifying or describing species, looking at internal structures without dissecting specimens or creating 3D ‘maps’ of body parts.

Once you’ve seen the level of detail revealed by these incredible images, you’ll never again look at the world in quite the same way.

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Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph images

Upside-down fly claw, cat flea head, coral sand particle, ant mandibles, dusky shark denticles, redback spider, velvet worm, scuttle fly, cribellum

Sue Lindsay, Australian Museum SEM

The Asmat people inhabit a low-lying region of Papua New Guinea, which is subject to almost-daily flooding. As a result, they live in houses raised on wooden posts or built in trees, sometimes as high as 25 metres from the ground, and their culture and lifestyle is heavily dependent on rivers and the sea.

This intricately carved canoe prow is a stunning example of the Asmat people’s famous woodcarving tradition. In the Asmat region, ornate canoe prow figure-heads, particularly those of the big war-canoes, are still being made by master-carvers. The designs are essentially the same as those found on shields and drums and represent favourite headhunting symbols - black cockatoo and hornbills, or an ancestor whose death will be avenged when the canoe is used in a headhunting raid.                                                          

This prow was retrieved from a rotten canoe found buried in mud. The five human figures have the heads of hornbills, and represent a group of deceased brothers. 

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Canoe prow
Wood, red clay
Asmat people, Er village, Asmat, West Papua
Collected  by M T Walker, 1974

E074268

Tetale bird figures are elaborate ornaments worn over the head during important dance rituals and ceremonies. The figures represent ancestral spirits, and were made by the Marind Anim people of West Papua.

This tetale is made of extremely fragile materials, and has been recently – and painstakingly – restored after it deteriorated in storage. This conservation work involved resetting each of the individual decorative seeds back into its resin base, restoring the bird to its original startling glory.

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Bird Tetale
Wood, fibres, seeds
Wendoe, Merauke district, West Papua
Collected 1916 by L Berhout  

E023970

English naturalist and painter George French Angas emigrated to Australia in 1844. By 1852 he was living and working in Sydney where he became Secretary of the Australian Museum from 1853-1860. 

He created these twelve remarkable drawings of nudibranchs – soft-bodied, shell-less molluscs with extraordinary colours and numerous feathery gills – in 1852, from his observations of the marine life in and around Sydney Harbour. Angas had a keen eye, and his art manages to capture these creatures’ vibrant, often almost-flourescent colours, as well as their changing patterns and strange, delicate and fascinating features. Long before colour photography, at a time when preservation techniques were crude, these drawings served as important records of these unique animals. 

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George French Angas
Watercolour drawings of the nudibranchs of Sydney Harbour Sketchbook containing 12 watercolour drawings, 1852
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