Recently, Curator Invertebrates Entomology Dr Julia Kasper re-discovered a box of audio tapes stored alongside our entomology collection. They were recorded by Sir Charles Fleming in his pioneering study of our country’s cicadas in the 1960s and 70s. Intern Finlay Dempster explains the significance of these audio tapes and the man who made them.Read more

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Richard (Dick) Dell specialised in the study of marine invertebrates, especially molluscs (shells). His interests and expertise also included crustaceans, and one of the more memorable names that he coined was for a spectacular deep water crab. Te Papa turned 150 years old on 8 December 2015. To celebrate 150Read more

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Dominion Museum Education School Cases: Bay Whaling No. 2, taken 18 August 1960. Photographer: F. O’Leary. Black and white file print from negative MA_B.009881. Te Papa

A museum exhibition? In our school? Not quite! But what about a museum case? For around 50 years in the 20th century, Te Papa’s predecessors delivered important, informational, and sometimes downright kooky exhibition suitcases to schools around the country. How do I know? My research project has had me rummagingRead more

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I’ve only been a curator for 7 months and even if you were the brainiest most well read person in the world, a curator is really only as good as their knowledge of their museum’s collection. So in familiarising myself with the Taonga Māori collection at Te Papa, I’ve been systematically goingRead more

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