Museum news

Scientific discoveries, ground-breaking expeditions, jaw-dropping exhibitions and Australia's biggest museum collection.

COVID-19 and zoonotic diseases

By understanding and protecting the natural world, we also have the potential to protect ourselves against possible pandemics.

Australian Museum Research Institute
Wildlife genomics

Bushfires and our changed country

The Australian Museum, through its research and engagement with Australia’s people and biodiversity, will be continuing to deepen understandings of how best to respond to the challenges of living with climate crisis.

Deaths in custody: what can museums do to effect change?

We are seeing protests in Australia, both in physical locations and across social media. They are calls to action for our own horrific crimes against First Nations’ Peoples and other People of Colour in Australia.

By Dr Sandy O’Sullivan

The tube anemone Pachycerianthus fiordlandensis

Tears of the gods in a tube!

Anemones are among the most colourful and beautiful marine invertebrates ̶ their cousins, the tube anemones, are equally as spectacular but less well known. A recent study of AMRI collections has led to a revision of records from the southwest Pacific and the recognition of a new species.

Five Critically Endangered land snails from Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

How does a land snail become a threatened species?

September 7th, the day the last thylacine died in captivity in 1936, is National Threatened Species Day. Founded to raise awareness of Australia’s plants and animals at risk of extinction, it’s also the occasion of Australia’s Threatened Species Bake-off.

Bathurst Earless Dragon (Tympanocryptis mccartneyi)

Triage for Australia's lizards and snakes

Which of Australia’s endangered species need our most urgent attention? This was the question facing a group of conservation biologists, including two scientists from the Australian Museum Research Institute, following the most recent round of Red Data Book assessments of our reptiles.

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Climate change

Central panel of rock art showing hand and axe stencils (photo credit: Amy Way)

This month in Archaeology: Threatened by fire: The Blue Mountains’ rock art galleries

Less than 100 km to the west of Sydney, a phenomenal rock art record survives in thousands of Blue Mountains rock shelters. These rock art sites hold significant cultural and heritage values and high research potential.

Western Foxfish (Bodianus frenchii) observed along the south coast of Western Australia

Moving south: how fishes are adapting to climate change

Moving south may be the best protection for marine fish in the face of rising ocean temperatures, but how far south can they go?

AMRI blog post

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Climate change

The Australian Museum has been involved in raising awareness and researching impacts of climate change for over a decade.

What are we doing?
What is climate change?

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Australian Museum Research Institute

Red-crowned Toadlet (Pseudophryne australis)

Hopping to it: 200,000 frog records in three years of FrogID

With 200,000 recorded frog calls comes a lot of valuable information! With the help of citizen scientists, a small, 3 cm sized threatened Sydney frog is verified as the 200,000th record for Australian Museum’s national FrogID project.

The mammals of Australia / by John Gould.

A new “type” of Pig-footed Bandicoot

The original description of the now extinct Australian Pig-footed Bandicoot was based on one specimen, since lost, from which the tail was missing. New research, from the Australian Museum and Western Australian Museum, has nominated a replacement…

Larval Sunfish, Mola species, collected off New South Wales coast.

Who am I? The larval sunfish mystery

Isn’t this the cutest fish you have ever seen? At only 2 mm in length, this larval sunfish is one of three species of Mola found in Australian waters. The question is: which one is it?

Whose History: the role of statues and monuments in Australia

The removal of statues of racists, such as Cecil Rhodes or statues that celebrate racist history in the United States, England and Africa has created discussions in Australia around what should be done its statues and monuments of invaders and colonists.

By Nathan Sentance

Tim Flannery reconciliation July 2018, Malaita, Solomon islands

Remarkable reconciliation ceremony in the Solomon Islands paves way for future partnerships

Decades of tension in Malaita were finally put to rest following an important and influential reconciliation involving the AM and the Kwaio in July 2018