WA Museum Collections and Research

Ever wondered what lies behind the lab doors of the WA Museum?

Particle WA recently spent time with our Senior Preparator Kirsten Tullis and taxidermist Teori Shannon, looking at the careful, creative and occasionally very unusual work that helps bring Museum displays to life.

Take a read behind-the-scenes:

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MUSEUM PREPARATOR | Particle What lies behind the lab doors of the Western Australian Museum?

That's a wrap! As the final leg of , the team spent four days sampling at the remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands. They surveyed four shipwrecks 🏴‍☠️, the oldest dating back to the 19th century, and collected a diverse array of marine invertebrates 🦀 🐚 on lagoonal and outer reef dives. Specimens will be winging their way to Perth where the team will identify and sequence the DNA of potential new species and species not known from the waters around the atoll.

This project has been made possible through support by Foundation for the WA Museum and Parks Australia

A previously unrecognised species of koala has been confirmed from fossils in the Western Australian Museum collection 🐨

“Deep grooves in the cheekbone housed a large facial muscle, suggesting the animal may have had unusually large, mobile lips, possibly for manipulating eucalyptus leaves, or maybe to flare its nostrils to enhance its sense of smell and detect food from greater distances."

Fossils of the species have now been identified from more than a dozen cave deposits across southern Western Australia, including sites in Yanchep, Margaret River and the Roe Plain near Madura. This widespread distribution shows that these koalas once occupied a far broader range than previously recognised.

Western Australia’s first new fossil koala species confirmed in the WA Museum collection | Western Australian Museum A previously unrecognised species of koala has been confirmed from fossils in the Western Australian Museum collection. It is the first new koala species identified from Western Australia.