Blog archive:
AMRI

The sixth annual FrogID Week has once again rapidly gathered data for frog conservation thanks to tens of thousands of citizen scientists.

FrogID citizen science data collected before and after the bushfires shows where frog populations persisted and where they might need our help.

The United Nations Climate Conference (COP28), currently underway in the United Emirates is the first time that the Australian Museum (AM) has been invited to participate in this global event.

Members of the Australian Museum Malacology team – Dr Frank Köhler and Dr Isabel Hyman – and Taronga Zoo colleague, Parnee Bonson, visited Phillip Island as part of the AM-led Norfolk Island expedition. The team were on the look-out for Critically Endangered snails, and the results were astounding!

As part of her PhD research, Dr Amber Brown, with supervisors Dr Greta Frankham, Dr Maiken Ueland and Dr Barbara Stuart, assessed Shingleback lizard odour profiles across the species distribution. This resulted in a new method of detecting and identifying this highly trafficked and smuggled species.

Emeritus Professor Richard Frankham, an influential biologist, researcher and long-standing Research Associate of the Australian Museum, has recently been awarded the prestigious 2023 Ulysses S. Seal Award for Innovation in Conservation.

At the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation 50th Anniversary dinner, Dr Anne Hoggett AM and Dr Lyle Vail AM were awarded the 2023 Australian Museum Research Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their tireless work in advancing our understanding of coral reef biology.

For the fourth year running, the Australian Museum hosted the Sydney Science Trail (August 14-19) – and with record-breaking numbers! Learn how our scientists, education and programming teams took part in this jam-packed program with primary and secondary students, teachers and families.

The ongoing identification of insect and spider specimens collected during the Australian Museum-led Norfolk Island expedition is throwing up a host of new family and species records & plenty of puzzles. The AM Arachnology & Entomology team tell us about these exciting finds and the work ahead.

Hidden in plain sight in the forests of Victoria’s Otway Plains and Ranges, we describe a new smooth frog to science, with an unusual reproductive mode.

The first global update on amphibians in almost two decades reveals the emerging threat of climate change, and a continuing decline in the status of frogs and other amphibians. The study finds 1 in 5 Australian species, and 2 in 5 global species, threatened with extinction.

Citizen scientists across Australia have helped uncover a frog species new to science in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and western Queensland. Find out more about this funny Aussie frog, which has a longer ‘laugh’ than the original tree frog species.

Arenaerpeton supinatus was a predatory amphibian that lived over 240 million years ago – the fossil of which was found whilst building a retaining wall in 1996. A few months later, this impressive fossil inspired me, a budding 12-year-old palaeontologist.

Six new species of trilobites have been found deep underground in the Canning Basin, Western Australia. Dr Patrick Smith at the Australian Museum and Heidi Allen from Geological Survey of WA tell us how this discovery has reshaped our understanding of ancient life and geological time in the region.

Flasher wrasses are a group of dazzling, colourful little fishes. Of the twenty or so species found globally, three are known to occur in Australia – or so we thought! A new study re-examines this group, and includes a species new to science, named after an Australian Museum superstar.