28 February 2009 – 12.13pm
Unfortunately I’m no spring chicken and you’d think that I would be pretty knowledgeable about my likes and dislikes by now.
But I’ve surprised myself – I think I may be… *sigh*… a racing petrolhead groupie.
You see, I don’t even know the proper name to call myself!
It hit me as soon as I parked the car and turned off the engine.
The noise! That reverberating vrooming of the Toyota Racing Series cars – it rocked! I was so excited I instantly rang my mate Jane just so she could hear it too. So far I’ve resisted earplugs – maybe as the weekend goes on those amazing sounds may pall.
I don’t think so though 
As I’m typing this blog, I’m upstairs at the Media office and some cars have just gone out onto the track – I can see them now – they’re V8s, and the sounds as they go onto the track are vibrating through the building.
Maybe I should soup up my wee Nissan…
27 February 2009 – 11.01am
I’m off to Feilding this Saturday and to be honest am quite excited about it – why? you ask
Motoracing!
But I’ll back the car up a bit and explain why I’m going: part of my job is to be visitor advocate, mostly in the exhibitions we create, but also online product such as mini-sites, computer games, and blogs. We try to make sure that the storylines make sense, is there a different way to tell this story – should we do it by a label beside the object, or an image, or can we tell the story in an audio visual?
But to be a good advocate you have to have some understanding of your visitor. It’s pretty tricky trying to cater for absolutely everyone all at once – so sometimes you’ll find we put on exhibitions that you’ll be dying to go see and other times are quite happy to miss. Certain exhibitions for certain audiences.
But – what if you’re an advocate for a potential audience you really don’t know much about? How will you know what they might or might not like?
Do as the Romans do – get in amongst them, watch and learn.
So – I am going to the New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild raceway to check out potential visitors. I have never been to motor races before in my life and thought that seeing all this from a first-timer’s point of view would be interesting to share.
Keep checking in over the weekend as I’ll be blogging live. My job really rocks sometimes
20 November 2008 – 3.02pm
Earlier this week, after Te Papa had closed, the staff in the exhibition preparation team took down all the creatures hanging from the ceiling (ranging from small diving petrels, to albatross, swordfish, sharks and seals). Most will be cleaned and rehung in a new configuration for the new colossal squid exhibit.
So how do you keep tabs on the hundreds of taxidermied creatures and models that are in Mountains to Sea?
Usually in the case of the birds they get a tag with an accession (tracking) number put around a leg – but this can be easily lost in the move and installation, understandably driving the collection managers and curators nuts.
So when it came to install objects in Mountains to Sea over 10 years ago a curator hit upon a cunning plan…
Can you see the tag? © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008
All the birds accession numbers were written on very small tags each getting pinned up inside the birds cloaca… no chance of losing tags there
There it is! © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008
So while the birds are at ground level waiting to be rehung for the new colossal squid exhibit, Gillian our Collection Manager Birds has taken the opportunity to double check the records with all these secretly hidden accession tags.
I’m glad we’re not kept track of that way
20 November 2008 – 8.50am
…. now I can’t get the song out of my head!
© Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008
For all you squid fans out there who’ve been waiting eagerly – and patiently for news on our beautiful colossal squid:
It’s (just wait – I’m counting the days back in my diary…) 23 days ’til she goes on display here at Te Papa so today we are launching our Countdown site.
Everyday we will show a new image of the colossal squid and/or the crew involved in this amazing journey so far. You’ll be able to access the blog where we’ll be updating you on the display installation and also link through to our existing Natural Environment squid info pages.
So save the page to your favourites and check in everyday – be a squid geek and BE PROUD!
www.tepapa.govt.nz/squid
cheers
Emma (a squid geek)
So I’m at my desk when my cell rings – its Anton (you know – our Collection Manager Marine Mammals)…
“Do you wanna see a dead whale?”
Of course! So off I trot (nice and quicksmart in time with whatever’s playing on my MP3) – not even worrying about what the Wellington wind was doing to my hair… you can’t turn your nose up to this kind of opportunity!
Anton pointing down to the washed up dead whale.
And there it was – I wasn’t too sure what I was expecting but this poor creature had been dead at least a couple of days, so it wasn’t in the best shape. It had been battered around by waves, dashed against rocks, pecked and chewed by various creatures.
My first view of the dead Pygmy Sperm whale
DoC had been contacted – their plan was to tow it back out to open sea – a floating restaurant for lots of happy sea creatures.
Two things I have learnt about a Pygmy sperm whale – notice three-quarters of the way towards its tail there’s discolouring in the water – I thought it was blood… its ink! We think they squirt ink out much like a squid does to confuse and escape from predators.
The other thing (although it has decomposed so much you couldn’t see it) is that these whales have markings just behind their heads that imitate gills. So, from a distance they could be mistaken for great white sharks.
The sneaky camouflage whale!
Measurements were taken (have just been told it was 3.2 metres long) and samples collected which will help us figure out its age and genetic make-up.
Measuring
By this time critical mass of onlookers had been achieved so passers by were now stopping to see what the go was. Of course nobody had been interested when it was just Anton and myself All those people walked on by who missed this opportunity… hence the blog! Too exciting and interesting not to share!
Morning!
If you’ve managed to go to the Whales|Tohorā exhibition here at Te Papa then you’ll have come across the pieces of baleen.
Some whales have teeth – others have baleen. Baleen sort of looks like bristley paintbrushes hanging down either side in a whale’s mouth. It acts like a big sieve or tea strainer. Baleen whales scoop tiny organisms like krill and copepods in mouthfuls along with sea water. They force the sea water out of their mouths through the baleen leaving the prey behind.
The whales then use a combination of their tongues, sucking action and possibly some rinsing with sea water to dislodge the prey from the baleen (its hairy on the inside and the prey gets caught) before swallowing.
The colouration of the baleen depends on the type of whale it is – the blue whale’s is almost black.
Our pygmy right whale’s baleen is creamy white on the inside, dark grey on the outside with a stripe of creamy white along the top. Its beautiful.
Well mostly because of how it’s mouth is shaped like a right whale’s but… a lot smaller. The people who named it were using a little piece of baleen and a glimpse of a live animal to give it it’s name.
Notice the curve of the upper jaw and how the lower jaw lips come up to meet the upper jaw – much like a right whale’s.
Scientists are slowly learning more about the pygmy right whale through post mortems (like this) but as they don’t wash up on beaches very often, not many have been done.
This is why this dissection over the next couple of days is so important to the scientific community. There is so much we simply do not know about this animal.
A blog from Bruce Reidenberg
Pygmy right whale mouth and chin
The pygmy right whale – chin on. You can see first incisions.
Dr. Joy Reidenberg has examined larynges (voice boxes) of many aquatic and terrestrial mammals. There are unique adaptations of whales to life in the water. One of these adaptations is the use of sound. Whales tend to make two types of sound: a high frequency sonar to examine their environment and a low frequency series of sounds that are used to communicate between individuals and groups. Very little is known about pygmy right whales’ sound production.
Since Dr. Joy Reidenberg has examined larynges of many species of whales whose sound production is well described, evaluating the anatomy of pygmy right whales may show similarities or differences with species that are better known. From this anatomical relationships, the types of sound made by pygmy right whales may be estimated. Then other scientists listening to whale recordings may be able to validate the guesses over time.
In addition to guessing the types of sound that pygmy right whales might make, Dr. Joy Reidenberg is looking forward to working with Prof. Fordyce, Drs Kemper and Rommel to compare the anatomy we observe over the next few days with fossil whales. From these comparisons, we expect new insights into understanding how whales have evolved from a land-based ancestor.
Hi this is Anton blogging in on Emma’s blog. At the moment we are taking lots and lots of photos. Documenting animals in this way allows us to have landmarks on the outside of the animal that we can link to internal structures. So that we can build up a picture of how the insides relate to the outside. We also do this to be able to make comparisons with future animals. For instance if we were to get a larger animal of this species we could show how things change (or don’t change) relative to size.
Good morning!
Everybody has gathered, its a little bit like an operating theatre (except cold!) with all the instruments on the table beside the dissection table. Knives are being sharpened:
Anton has sharpened 9 so far.
Measurements have been taken:
From tip of upper jaw to the deepest part of the fluke notch – 2.31 metres
Girth – 1.2 metres
Dorsal fin is situated far back along the body – 1.5m from its snout
Dorsal fin height – 7cm
Span of fluke – 60cm
He’s a male.
They’ve found 12 bite marks so far, these are assumed to be from a cookie-cutter shark (isistius braziliensis). These won’t have been cause of death.
