In my opinion the Melbourne Museum is one of the most underrated places for a zoo nerd in Melbourne. There are five areas with permanent live animal collections varying in size and depth. There are also special displays of the vast offshow collection of the museum. I will tackle them from smallest to largest in size with special exhibitions at the end. Oceans: While mostly taxidermy animals, the area does contain a small singular tank with a few fish species and many invertebrates. Unfortunately I have no idea what species they are. Ancient Australia: One of my favourite sections of the nature and science hall, this has displays varying from fossils to animatronic dinosaurs and everything in between and has a singular tank with a few Australian Lungfish. Indigenous Australia: Although there are no live animals in the actual indoor segment there is a small outdoor garden with Short Finned Eels which are fed daily. Bugs Alive!: dedicated to invertebrates (or if your lucky like Chilidonias, Thorny Devils as well). This area has a wide range of native (and a few exotic) invertebrates including but not limited to. Leaf ant (really cool exhibit with a moat) Various aquatic invertebrates. Giant Millipedes House Flies Red back spider St. Andrew’s Cross spider Other orb weavers Mexican Red Knee Tarantula Baboon Tarantula Salmon Pink Tarantula Meat ants A wide array of stick insects, kaytids, spiders, grasshoppers, cockroaches, beetles and others. The main reason I made this thread was to highlight the Forest Secrets gallery, which is a walkthrough exhibit with many terrariums and aquariums as well as free flying birds and free roaming skinks. The species list is as follows Aquarium A: Eastern Long Neck Turtle, Silver Perch Aquarium B: Tupong, Flat Headed Galaxias, Common Galaxias. Terrarium A: Eastern or Blotched (can’t remember which) Blue Tongue Lizard. Terrarium B: Southern Water Skink (it always eludes me) and Spotted Tree Frog. Terrarium C: Stick Insects. Free ranging animals: Reptiles: Cunningham’s Skink Birds: constantly being swapped and interchanged but in the last few years, these species have been spotted, I will also show the likelihood of the visitor seeing them. Buff Banded Rail: Guaranteed (ubiquitous and easily seen) Wonga Pigeon: Highly Likely Eastern Whipbird: Likely Red Browed Finch: Moderate Satin Bowerbird: Moderate Yellow Tuffted Honeyeater: unlikely Masked Woodswallow: unlikely Tawny Frogmouth: Nearly impossible There’s also signage for Crimson rosellas but I have never seen one. Special exhibitions: Recently (late last year) I’ve seen a a discovery centre with Growling Grass Frogs, Pobblebonk frogs and a Stimsons Python. Also late last year there was a gecko exhibition with four species of gecko. saltuarius cornutus (Northern leaf tailed gecko) strophurus ciliaris (Northern Spiny Tailed Gecko) nephrurus amyae (Rough Knob Tailed Gecko) The rarest of them all being two amazing specimens of Carphodactylus laevis or the Australian Chameleon Gecko. I have photos of all four if wanted in the gallery.
I only wish they turned the Melbourne Museum into a Natural History Museum and then opened another Museum-museum since its not particularly large and its best exhibitions are all nature focused.
I visited the Melbourne Museum and thought that it was as good a zoo as a museum. The forest aviary is wonderful. We watched a male satin bower bird building his bower. The insect zoo was terrific too. Any zoo nerd should make this place a destination while in Melbourne. I didn't have a chance to visit the Melbourne Zoo or the aquarium, but between those, Healesville, Moonlit Sanctuary, and the Melbourne Museum, it's a world-class zoo town.
One of the early curators was an anti-evolutionist so he insisted the taxidermy should make animals, especially apes, as demonic as possible.
Sorry I made an error in my post he was an anti-evolutionist, and in fact was a creationist. Have edited the original post.
I'm a bit torn with how I feel about the museum. The building is terrific and the live animal areas are pretty spectacular, but I'm disappointed with the dinosaur areas (now relegated to hallway), especially given Victoria is world-famous for its polar dinosaurs. I also wish it made better use of its taxidermy collection particularly the Australian ones: an American Museum style diorama hall for Australian fauna would be nice. Those thylacine specimens deserve more.
As someone’s who’s been to the Museum of Natural history in NYC, I much prefer Melbourne zoos presentation of taxidermy specimens. Although I agree the Thylacines should be in a diorama. My disappointment is the slow removal of on display live animals but it's still excellent for a museum, and their special displays are magnificent. Aren't all the dinosaurs on display at Melbourne Museum replicas?
Wow! really?!!! I absolutely love the AMNH. Those dioramas are beautiful. I think we have very different tastes. As much as I love live animals, I'm surprised how much focus there is on that at Melbourne. Its certainly not what I expect from a museum. Yes. certainly all the Chinese dinosaurs are. If I recall in the 80's Melbourne taught a Chinese team how to do the casting process with a bunch of their fossils in return for the right to keep casts of each for themselves - or something like that. Thats why Melbourne has such a great collection of Chinese dinosaur casts. But I'd imagine all the Victorian dinosaurs fossils would be stored at the museum. Personally I don't care so much if they are real thing or reconstructed casts on display - I just think its as missed opportunity our own museum doesn't have an exhibit focusing on our own dinosaurs - especially given their uniqueness as polar species.
Agreed about the native dinosaurs also I remember when the dinosaur hallway opened they had an animatronic Mimi which would just walk around.
