Listen here!

This floor talk is about a scientist and an artist who collaborated to help save an endangered species, and in the process won a Tasmanian Design Award. 

Spotted Handfish Spawning Habitat and Clay is an insight into science-based, research-driven collaboration with art and design resulting in site specific ceramic artificial spawning habitat installations into the Derwent River. The project is a collaboration between Dr Tim Lynch, Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO, and Jane Bamford, ceramic artist. The aim of the project is to support the spawning of the critically endangered spotted handfish to further secure this charismatic marine species from extinction. 

Click here for Dr Tim Lynch, and here for Jane Bamford. Read about the Tasmanian Design Award here.

To visit the Handfish Conservation Project website, click here.

While TMAG, and hence the Friends, were prevented from holding events during social isolation in 2020, we produced an online presentation for you to watch.

Dr Simon Grove, Senior Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, has put together a talk on Tasmanian seashells. Simon knew what he wanted to do from an early age, and you'll catch a glimpse of his shell collection from his childhood in England, and then hear how he came to Australia to continue his studies at James Cook University in Queensland, and on to a job he loves here at TMAG. 

We thank Simon for putting his time into this, and Friends committee member Janine Combes for facilitating the presentation. We hope that you enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whRtvf_3AsI&feature=youtu.be

A great chance to cast aside our inhibitions and pick up some hints about creating a fun and meaningful journal. It opened everyone's eyes to the treasures of TMAG, and helped reluctant writers to find a way of putting their words on paper, and hesitant sketchers to take the plunge with those pencils.

Members brought their children and grandchildren along to a great family event, and a chance for the kids to educate their elders on the finer details of augmented reality, a segment of the Dinosaur rEvolution funded by the Friends.

You can't sum up Australia's presence in Antarctica in an hour or two. We were given a taste of ice core sampling, a penguin-cam view of Southern Ocean krill, an insight into why Antarctic medicine is being used as a model for NASA's preparations for Mars, and a look at the outside and the inside of the new supply ship Nuyina. And I haven't even mentioned the penguin biscuits. In the words of one of our members, 'Extremely informative, well planned and with entertaining and engaging speakers'.

Miguel de Salas and Lyn Cave of the Tasmanian Herbarium did a great job of explaining what it's like to go bush in Tasmania in search of new plant species.

It's a squeezy venue but the forty members who managed to fit into the Herbarium were treated to a wonderful talk by Dr Gintaras Kantvilas, and a rare opportunity to see at first hand some of the carefully preserved specimens that form the Herbarium's collection. Gintaras recounted the tangled history of some of the specimens -- one was first collected by the French, impounded in Batavia by the Dutch, seized by the English in transit to the Netherlands, and finally returned to the French through patient dialogue between the scientists, despite their nations' continuing war footing.

A capacity crowd of 120 members enjoyed a walk through Lahaye's Garden at Government House, followed by a warm welcome from Her Excellency the Governor, an informative talk by gardener Tara Edmondson, and a superb selection of canapes themed for the occasion by chef Ainstie Wagner. 

Lahaye's Garden is a recreation of a vegetable garden established at Recherche Bay in 1792 by a French scientific expedition led by Rear Admiral Bruni D'Entrcasteaux.

To whet your appetite once again for both history and food, we invite you to read up about them by following the links below.

To see more photos of the event, go to our photo album.

A team of specialists recently completed an old-style ‘voyage of discovery’ on the RV Investigator, sampling animals living in the abyssal depths off the continental shelf on the east coast of Australia. Very little is known about the fauna from these depths (2500–4000m) and what is known is based on very old, patchy records from surveys a century ago. Dr Kirrily Moore, TMAG Collection Manager (Invertebrate Zoology), was one of the expeditioners, and she described her talk, Sampling the Abyss, as ‘a festival of weird fish, taxonomists, blogs and mud’: 

‘We experienced the highs of successful collection of samples from un-described species and very rarely collected species, viewing footage of live animals is an extreme environment and linking with live schools and researchers to spread news of our discoveries as they happened. We also experienced the lows of broken and lost gear, 2 am start times, bad weather and a LOT of mud!’

Further links: the blog website https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/abyss-landing-page

Tim’s summary of the voyage at https://theconversation.com/sludge-snags-and-surreal-animals-life-aboard-a-voyage-to-study-the-abyss-79924

The priapulid worms got a good run on US late night comedy shows, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgVtWDljcU

More event photos in the website photo album.

The Derwent exhibition explores Tasmania’s Derwent River system and its complex natural and cultural histories. This exhibition includes videos and photographs by Tasmanian artists David Stephenson and Martin Walch, along with several historic works on paper and panoramic photographs from TMAG’s collections.

Our Friends event featured two distinguished TMAG speakers: Senior Curator of Art Dr Mary Knights, and Educator Richard Hale.

More event photos in the website photo album.