Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni)

The photo unavoidably foreshortens the squid. I put a water bottle at the far end to try and give it scale but it doesn't really work. This specimen is the largest Colossal Squid ever caught, and is the only one on display anywhere in the world (according to the signage). It is an immature female, caught in 2007, and measures 4.5m in total length and weighs 500kg. The tentacles are 2.1m long.

Well, of the four sort-of-"main" museums (the Auckland War Museum, Te Papa in Wellington, the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, and the Otago Museum in Dunedin), Te Papa has always been my least favourite. I've never liked the chaotic way it is presented (and chaotic was a very apt choice of wording from you). The previous natural history section was much worse than the other parts of the museum, believe it or not; just a hectic mish-mash of everything. Basically they seem to design their exhibits to cater to small children with fifteen-second attention spans.

The new natural history area opened on the 11 May and I went to see it on the 12th (which was a Sunday) - hated it! But I thought that was mainly because it was absolutely jam-packed with people, sidling room only. So I went back before work the other day, mid-week, when there was almost nobody there, and I did like it a lot better although I only had ten minutes to look around and take these few photos. But I have so many issues with it, in particular the appalling informational signage. Written signage is either poor or entirely absent, with there instead being those awful touch-screens which only one person can use at a time - if you can't get to a screen then you likely will have no idea what you're looking at.

I will say that the new area is better than the old one; not so cluttered for one thing. (I do like "clutter" in natural history museums, as in the 19th century curio type collections, but the old area was more of that flashy modern form of clutter to appeal to children rather trying to be educational). Still the separate parts of the area have no connection with one another, and they're just plonked everywhere. I said to my sister that it was like whoever designed it just tossed a bunch of boxes onto a table and however they landed, that was the layout of the floor-plan.

In case anyone is wondering about those two horror-masks in the background above, they are deepsea anglerfish for kids to put their heads inside and their parents can take a photo of them.