The blog is where we'll post news, updates, information about objects in our collection, #betterworkstories, profiles of staff members and visitors, pictures and videos, and really anything we think you'd find interesting. We hope you enjoy.
If there's a topic you'd like us to do a post about, or a post that you think needs a sequel, just let us know!
In the spotlight: Haast's Eagle and Upland Moa
Our Natural Science team recently removed two Museum icons, the Haast's eagle and Upland moa, from display in our Southern Land, Southern People gallery...
Summer and ice creams... it's a classic picture
But imagine the moulded ice delicacies displayed and consumed a century or more ago, rather than today’s triple-scoop cone of assorted flavours...
New Zealand’s oldest telescope discovered in Otago Museum collection
Otago Museum has discovered that it is home to what appears to be the oldest telescope in New Zealand.
Both the Otago Museum and Space Place in Wellington have telescopes within their collections made by James Short (1710–1768), a highly significant 18th century telescope maker, who studied classics, divinity and mathematics at Edinburgh University...
Researcher Insights
Q & A with Henry Gard.
The Otago Museum is a busy place, with over 350,000 people through our doors in the last year. A number of these visitors are researchers who have requested access to our world-class collection of 1.5 million+ objects to support their studies.
Mosgiel Medals
Preparing updates to our Southern Land Southern People gallery has proven to be a great stimulus to do extra research on the stories behind the items on display.
This week I’ve been looking at the medals won by the Mosgiel Woollen Factory Company in 1879 and 1880. Two are from the Taieri Agricultural Society shows where it was estimated that over 1,400 adults attended. There’s a third from the Canterbury A & P Association.
Great Crested Grebes of Lake Wanaka
Although the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus) is a cosmopolitan species, the subspecies found in New Zealand is rare and is confined to the inland lakes of Canterbury and Otago.
NZ Chinese Language Week – two early 20th century translations
A number of Dunedin men and women served as Christian missionaries and teachers in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
Te Marama Puoro Waiata Māori – Māori Music Month
Music has always been an important component of Māori life – waiata are sung during pōwhiri and other formal ceremonies, as well as to acknowledge events, express emotion and tell stories. In pre-European times...
A Lot of Zeros
Last month, New Zealanders were told that the annual inflation rate for the second quarter of 2016 had “come in slightly softer than expected… at 0.4%” – a far cry from the experience of Hungary in 1946...
Milestone met for moth project at Otago Museum
The Otago Museum, in collaboration with Landcare Research, is in the middle of a significant moth data collection project, working towards painting a broad picture of its expansive moth collection. The Museum holds one of New Zealand’s most accurately documented and regionally comprehensive collections of moths, assembled by former Otago Museum Collections and Research Manager Brian Patrick. Each moth within this collection has been named, and each record includes data on where it was collected, when and by whom. The project will capture and digitise the data of over 23,000 specimens including three families of moth – Ghost moths (Hepialidae), Geometer moths...
About
Our blog aims to keep you informed of the latest happenings at the Otago Museum, through posts about our collections, our people and our work.
Disclaimer
The views expressed here are those of our individual contributors, and are not the views of the Otago Museum.
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All content of this blog is Copyright Otago Museum, 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the Otago Museum, except for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, review, or education, as provided for in the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994.