Marine mammal collection
Follow the links to find out about marine mammals in the Australian Museum's mammal collection.
The Collection - whales and dolphins
Killer Whale skull, Orcinus orca, stored off-site.
Two of the whale skeletons on display to the public.
The Australian Museum's cetacean collection dates back to the late 1800s and consists of approximately 550 specimens from more than 40 different species. Representatives from 9 of the 10 families of cetaceans known worldwide are present in the collection. These include the large baleen whales such as the right whales (Balaenidae), pygmy right whales (Neobalaenidae) and rorquals (Balaenopteridae) as well as toothed whales such as the marine dolphins (Delphinidae), river dolphins, (Platanistidae), porpoises (Phocoenidae), beaked whales (Ziphiidae), sperm whales (Physeteridae) and narwhal (Monodotidae).
Most of the cetacean collection originates from the Pacific region with over 200 specimens from Australia, 132 from the Solomon Islands, 18 from New Zealand, 10 from Tonga and 9 from Papua New Guinea.
The Museum has several fully articulated whale skeletons on display.
Types of specimens
The types of specimens that make up the cetacean collection are extremely diverse ranging in size from the fully articulated skeleton of a Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus), hanging over the College Street entrance of the Museum, to small boxes of isolated dolphin teeth. Other types of specimens include skulls, disarticulated skeletons, individual bones (such as ear bones, vertebrae, flippers etc.) baleen (the thin, fringed plates attached to the upper jaws of baleen whales) as well as internal organs or foetal specimens preserved in spirit. The Museum’s tissue collection also holds frozen and ethanol preserved tissues of cetaceans.
Storage and display
Cetaceans are among the most challenging of mammals to collect, prepare and store given their generally large size and the oily nature of the bones. Some of the smaller specimens can be preserved on site at the Museum but most are currently sent to the South Australian Museum where skeletons are prepared in a specially designed facility. Unfortunately very few cetaceans are currently on display in the Museum, with the exception of several fine skeletons in the Skeleton Exhibition and the large Sperm Whale in the College Street entrance. Most of the Museum’s cetacean collection is stored at an off-site facility where it is available for researchers, for loan to approved institutions or for display in temporary exhibitions.
Origin of the collection
Most of the cetacean specimens in the Australian Museum’s collection have been obtained from animals found dead on the beach (known as strandings). However, the Solomon Islands material is a notable exception having been collected together with local hunters by cetacean expert and Museum research associate, Dr Bill Dawbin, during field studies in Malaita from 1951 - 1975. A small number of specimens have also been acquired via exchange with other museums or by exhuming animals buried after stranding along the New SouthWales coast.
Use of collections
Museum collections in general, have three broad functions:
- as a repository for historically important specimens (such as type specimens, extinct species or those that represent new distributional records)
- for educational purposes (as in a museum exhibition or training course)
- scientific research
Cetaceans are among the least known of all mammal groups and detailed research of animals in the wild is generally expensive and logistically difficult. Stranded animals (either alive or dead) provide important opportunities to gather information about various aspects of cetacean biology such as general life history, ecology, distribution, disease, toxicology and evolutionary relationships. Specimens lodged in museum collections (skulls, skeletons or frozen tissue samples) provide a permanent resource which researchers from within Australia and overseas can use to study cetacean biology. In some cases the same specimens or series of specimens will be used in different studies.
Collections can form the basis for studies in fields as diverse as systematics, phylogenetics (study of groups linked through evolution), diet, population biology (cetaceans can be aged by examining the teeth, much like aging trees by examining growth rings) and the effects of marine pollution on marine mammals.
Research - whales and dolpins
The Australian Museum has a long history of cetacean research and the collection contains many specimens of great historical and scientific importance. The collection has originated from and provided the basis for research by a large number of Australian and international researchers over the years.
Past research
One researcher who had a long and close association with the Museum was Dr Bill Dawbin, a well-known and respected marine mammalogist who died in 1998.
Dawbin's research interests were broad and include studies of:
- Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) distribution and movements
- compilation of whaling historic records of the Humpback Whale and the Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis)
- acoustics of the Humpback Whale and the Pygmy Right Whale (Caperea marginata)
As a research associate in the Mammal section, Dawbin donated many valuable specimens to the Museum. Notable among these are a fine collection of skulls and skeletons of the Pantropical Spotted Dolphin (Stenella attenuata) obtained during his study of indigenous hunting in Malaita, Solomon Islands from 1951 - 1975, and the first adult specimen of Fraser's Dolphin (Lagenodelphis hosei) ever recorded.
Current research
Each year the collection attracts cetacean researchers from both within Australia and overseas working on aspects of cetacean biology including taxonomy, systematics, morphological variation and developmental biology. Some recent studies that have used specimens or specimen data from the Australian Museum collection include: a morphometric study of Common Dolphins (Tursiops spp), skull morphology of Short-finned Pilot Whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), age estimation of Pygmy Sperm Whales (Kogia breviceps), systematics of beaked whales (Family: Ziphiidae) and distribution of Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus).
Other types of research
Occasionally a whale or dolphin will appear at sea and it will be difficult to determine the exact identity of the species. One such case arose recently when an unidentified large whale collided with a boat in waters off northern New South Wales. Fortunately, as is often the case with cetaceans some tissue was left behind in the water. Staff from the Museum's Evolutionary Biology Unit were able to extract DNA from these pieces of discarded skin and compare these with a library of DNA from known species. The analysis proved without doubt that the collision involved a Bryde's Whale (Balaenoptera edeni), a large (up to 16m) and inquisitive species that often approaches boats.
What's new?
Whale bones unearthed
Friday, 1 March, 2002
by AAP
The skull and jaws of a Gray's Beaked Whale, Mesoplodon grayi, is one of the specimens recovered during the 'dig'.
Australian Museum's Mammal collection Manager, Dr Sandy Ingleby, was involved in the exhumation of two skeletons from a secret burial site on the New South Wales coast this week. The site remains secret to prevent the bones becoming part of the illegal trade in whale bones.
Digging for the bones, which had been buried in 1999, provided some excitement for those involved. The skeletons will become part of the Australian Museum's collection and join the 540 whale and dolphin specimens collected over the past 150 years. Dr Ingleby believes these skeletons can help scientists in their research into the health of whales - their biology, why they beached themselves and their genetic origins. The Museum has a skeleton hanging from its College Street entrance area that was washed up on Wollongong Beach in 1871. It has been hanging from the ceiling since 1910.
The largest skeleton in our collection is a 25m long fin whale estimated to weigh 90 tonnes. The recently recovered skeletons will add to the scientific value of the Museum's collections.
(this story was reported by AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 27/02/2002 and the DAILY TELEGRAPH (SYDNEY) 27/02/2002)
http://www.amonline.net.au/archive.cfm?id=688
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2003
