Tails from the Coasts

This is a small carnivore that was once fairly widespread and common across Southeast Asia, and adjacent countries in South Asia. It's called a Binturong. Its other common name is bearcat, but it's neither a bear nor a cat. But people seemed to think that it looked a bit like that.

It's in the family viverridae, which includes genets and civets. So it's actually the largest species of civet that we know. It's an unusual animal in lots of different ways. It's got very small ears. It has this body which is covered in this kind of dark grizzly looking fur, because the tips of the hairs are white. The most interesting feature I think of them is this long tail, which is actually prehensile. It's a tree dwelling mammal so it spends a lot of its day asleep, curled up in a tree, and it uses its tail almost like a fifth limb to hang onto branches.

Its favourite food is figs, apparently. So they'd be going between the trees looking for fruiting fig trees. They do eat other food groups as well, such as small rodents, eggs, birds eggs and so on, some invertebrates.

This one's a very old specimen. It's actually registered here at this museum in 1908, July 1908. We could see that in the old register. It came to us via Taronga Zoo, and we still, even to this day, still get specimens via the zoo. Considering its age, it's looking pretty good.

[PRODUCER] So this species is featured in the Tails from the Coasts exhibition. What do you think about the way the watercolour from around 200 years ago depicts the animal?

Like, it's really - it's a beautiful image. I think it is very helpful. It shows the main features which some of which you can't actually see on the specimen. One of them being that the white rings or tips of the ears which have faded in this specimen, and also they've caught the beautiful white whiskers as well, which this one, you can barely see them. Or if you do see them, they're no longer white. But we see photos of the living animal. It's really obvious. Also the beautiful orange eyes as well. This one... eyes are always the problem with taxidermy specimens so they've caught that, and also the sort of the nature of the fur, the sort of grizzly appearance, and even more importantly, the prehensile tail. So they've caught that as well.

It's interesting that they've shown it on the ground, because it would normally spend more time in the trees, but if it's based on an animal they had in captivity, then that's probably explains why it's on the ground. But I mean, it's just you can just see it's got that beautiful - it brings it to life, it's got a real character to it, like a real personality, almost. It's a lovely image.

But yeah, they've been mainly been moving around, probably grooming this solitary, except for when a female has a young. So you probably see groups of them. I think they are becoming increasingly rare. Used to be fairly widespread and relatively common, but now suddenly becoming much more rare.

The main threat, like somebody else currently, is habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. And that's mainly due to logging for timber and also clearing for agriculture, urban extension and so on. So that would be a big threat. Another one is also hunting. So they hunted for the meat and just - yeah, it's an unfortunate. And also they do form part of the pet trade as well. So they are often kept as captive animals and pets. But those would be the three probably biggest threats.

It like? How would - they not particularly afraid of humans? And they - yeah, they they're not particularly shy, which is obviously why they have been like pets as compared to industry. So I mentioned that they would be fairly, definitely slow moving as well. So that's something to take off of, you know, disappear. So, and when they're in the trees, if they do move very slowly to come down. So there'd be some patterns to catch as well, which is what they - are, they'd be like sloth. So they're very close relative.

So, drones live in Southeast Asia. All the particular areas as well as the adjacent countries. South China, for instance, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, but the strongholds, probably Thailand, they are becoming increasingly rare in South China and also Vietnam, where it's not that they are in imminent risk of extinction, but definitely Southeast Asia. It's been like many.

Oh, look, it's very important. So both research and education, often a painting can show a feature that's very difficult to catch in a photo or even for a live animal. So you can really see detail in some of the images. It's also really important historically because depending on when this feature is drawing, this made often, we're not sure which species was in a particular area a certain time. But if you have an image like this and it's accurate, you can actually decide which species would say. So it's like a permanent historical record as well of the of a what species? One area at a particular time.

Even to the point where some paintings are used as the type specimens. So when a species is first given its name description by a scientist, they normally nominate a specimen device that description on. But sometimes if the specimen wasn't available, they actually used a painting for. The painting becomes to talk to this man as well. I think it's also really just important to, they said that they really do inspire people as well. I think just with the beauty and diversity and character of so much of the wildlife that.

They are placed in the order carnivore, which includes the fields and canines and bears and so on. But they're actually not a true carnivore in the sense of being a big meat eater. They do have the canines that most carnivores have and the crushing teeth at the back, but they significantly reduce because they might die. This is front. So they don't need that sort of heavy crushing of the slicing teeth. But yeah, fruit is pretty slim. So they classed as an omnivore. Beautiful.

In the wild? You'd probably see them maybe up in the tree tops. Probably curled up, maybe with their tail curled around a branch. They're active mostly at night, but also during the day. They do come down to the ground sometimes to move between trees.

So this specimen right here is a species of hammerhead called Eusphyra blochii, and it is more commonly known as the Winghead Shark. And it gets its name from this amazing kind of hammer-like structure that it has on the top of its head. It's called as a cephalofoil. So this is, kind of tropical species of hammerhead. It's found all the way from the Gulf of Persia, around to Australian waters, all throughout southern Asia.

Like all hammerheads it's got this gorgeous long streamlined body that tends to be darker on the dorsal top side and the lighter underneath a really long, powerful tail at the back here. And of course, its very characteristic hammer-like head.

Now, scientists don't know exactly what the purpose of this hammer structure is, but we have a few different hypotheses. They all relate to kind of enhancing the sensory power of this species of shark. So the eyes are really, really far apart on the Winghead Shark, right on the very tips of this cephalofoil and that gives it the widest range of vision of any hammerhead species.

Another feature of this hammer-like structure is that it actually separates the nostrils of the shark. And this is hypothesised to give it a better, kind of sense of smell. It can follow the direction of different scent paths in the water column. And it can, like, take in a lot of water over the nostrils so it can smell at a faster rate than other species, potentially.

The final thing that this sort of hammer shaped head can do is that it actually enhances the electro reception of the shark. So sharks have these tiny little gel filled pores along their heads called Ampullae of Lorenzini and these act to sense the electrical fields of their prey. And because the shark has such a long and big hammer, it probably has more surface area for these little sensory pores. So it has more.

[PRODUCER] So this species is featured in the Tails from the Coasts exhibition. What do you think about the way the watercolour from around 200 years ago depicts the animal? Would you say that's accurate?

I just think this is such a gorgeous, gorgeous watercolour of the specimen. I think, even though it's quite like stylised and artistic as a watercolour goes, it actually really captures a lot of the key features of the Winghead Shark really well, if we kind of compare it to this specimen. We can see that these five gill slits that are characteristics of hammerheads, actually present in exactly the right number along the side here. We can see that this massive first dorsal fin occurs at exactly the right original place. If we kind of follow it along to this, origin of the first pectoral fin, then that is actually quite accurate. And something that you can't even see very clearly with natural history specimens that have spent over 100 years in alcohol is the colour of the specimen and that's captured beautifully in this picture. You can see that darker colour on that head and along the dorsal top side of the animal compared to that whiter body down the bottom, which would help camouflage it within the water column. It's really cool.

The scientific name of the Black-tailed Godwit is Limosa limosa which comes from the Latin word limosus, meaning muddy. So although this bird's name literally means muddy, muddy bird. This is not an insult to this species, but it actually describes the marshy habitats that these birds live in.

These birds, really unusual in that they have very long, straight beak which has darker tip. They have very long necks and very long legs. And, they're also one of two godwit species that are found in Australia. Mostly in northern Australia, but they don't actually breed here.

So these birds breed in the Northern Hemisphere, in places like Siberia and Mongolia. And then, after the breeding season, they take this amazing migratory journey where they fly thousands and thousands of kilometres south, all the way down to Australia and New Zealand for winter. And they do this by using the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, which is a major flight path used by millions of migratory water birds.

So this bird is featured in the Tails From The Coasts exhibition that's currently on at the Australian Museum. What do you think about the way that this watercolor depicts the bird?

Well, this watercolour painting is really nice in that it shows the non-breeding plumage colour of the Black-tailed Godwit, so from the painting you can see that it's duller in colour compared to when it's in its reddish brown breeding plumage. It's a bit hard to tell whether this is a male or a female Black-tailed Godwit because the males and females are quite similar in their colour.

Scientific illustrations like the watercolour paintings in this exhibition are important for communicating our knowledge of these species in a way that's more accessible and can be translated across all languages.