Australian Museum
News Stories

This year we celebrate 50 years of the AM’s LIRS, a globally-recognised research station devoted to understanding the incredible scale and structure of the Great Barrier Reef which can be seen from space.

Dr Anne Hoggett AM explores the plight of our coral reefs and how we can help protect their future in the Australian Museum’s Talbot Oration.

Fine-tuning citizen science to map frog species richness together.

In their recently published essay collection, Dr Pat Hutchings (Australian Museum), Dr Sarah Hamylton (University of Wollongong) & Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (University of Queensland) delve deep into Australian coral reef history, ecology, management, First Nations cultural significance & future.

Founded in 1973, the Lizard Island Research Station has studied reef ecologies and the impacts of climate change for fifty years.

In winter 2021, Australia’s frogs suffered a mass mortality event. As temperatures drop, we are worried it might happen again – we need you to help monitor our frogs.

Norfolk Island is home to many beautiful birds – however, Norfolk Island also has an unenviable extinction rate when it comes to its bird fauna. To understand more, our scientists studied the endemic and exotic birdlife of Norfolk Island during the recent Australian Museum-led expedition.

An unusual find of thousands of skeleton shrimp on commercial fishing nets in the Gippsland Lakes, south-eastern Australia has led to the revision of a species from Far East Asia, review of previous records, and recognition of a new species.

Will people record calling frogs, everywhere, all at once?

What did the most complete, opalised vertebrate fossil in Australia eat? In an Australian first, PhD candidate Joshua White & co-authors used a micro-CT scanner to examine the stomach contents of the Australian Museum’s ‘Eric the plesiosaur'. Learn how they reconstructed this unique reptile's diet.

A team from the Australian Institute of Botanical Science has collected about 400 plant specimens on the recent Australian Museum-led expedition to Norfolk Island, helping the community identify new weeds that potentially could cause havoc to local ecosystems.

A cat, dingo and goanna in Namadgi National Park were the latest animals recorded via DNA from an insect’s belly. Tim Cutajar at the Australian Museum and Dr Stephanie Pulsford tell us how!

Russell Bicknell, our 2021/22 Australian Museum Foundation/Australian Museum Research Institute Visiting Research Fellow, recently explored the trilobites in the Australian Museum palaeontology collection. Russell tells us more about spotting fossil anomalies!

An exquisite new species of goby has just been described – and it was found in a museum! A new publication co-authored by Dr Yi-Kai Tea, the Australian Museum’s Chadwick Biodiversity Research Fellow, describes these showstopping fishes and highlights the importance of taxonomic research in museums.

The Australian Museum Photographic Archives host a vast collection championing biological, ecological, and ethnographic research, education, and discovery.