bones | Te Papa’s Blog

The mystery of Augustus Hamilton’s bird bone system

Melanie Ioane-Warren, one of our Natural History interns, talks about the important collection of bird bones gathered by the late Augustus Hamilton. Melanie is working on this bone collection together with Curators Alan Tennyson and Rodrigo Salvador, and GNS scientist Karyne Rogers. In 1875, the clipper ship Collingwood departed EnglandRead more

By: Guest writer

On: 31 Aug 2021

In: Behind the scenes, Science

How to clean a dolphin’s teeth

Conservator Robert Clendon is undertaking the bizarre job of cleaning the teeth of a bottlenose dolphin and then gluing the teeth into position so they don’t pop out while on display.Read more

By: Robert Clendon

On: 29 Aug 2018

In: Behind the scenes, Science

Alan and his mum Bice looking at the penguin bones

Ancient colossal penguin bones discovered in Otago

What do you do when you discover what is possibly the largest penguin ever? You name it after your mum. This is what Curator Vertebrates Alan Tennyson – who has a paper on the discovery out today – did.Read more

By: Alan Tennyson

On: 13 Dec 2017

In: Science