Science:
Subtopics

Discover Documentary: Bees
In this episode of Discover, Dr. Ken Walker takes us into Museums Victoria's Entomology Collection. As an expert in native bees, he explains how these tiny creatures have a major global impact.

Forest Secrets
The forested mountains which embrace the city of Melbourne are the setting for giant trees, dramatic geological events, human stories of tragedy and triumph, evolution of unique organisms and regular occurrence of bushfires.

Help us document biodiversity – record your own sightings

Australia's oldest insect specimen
A Common Evening Brown collected in China in 1742.

What are these swarming beetles in my garden?
Each January, the Museum receives many enquiries about swarms of beetles in suburban gardens in and around Melbourne

Predator vs predator
Wasps give huntsman spiders a taste of their own medicine.

Buzz off!
How do you study a bee so small it can barely be seen?

Bountiful Mallee
Close encounters with Mallee insects.

On the wing

Kindred spirits
Between 1891 and 1947, George Lyell and Gustavus Athol Waterhouse's regular correspondence shared a passion for moths and butterflies.

Light sheets
Peter Marriott talks moth bioscans in the Otways for National Science Week at Melbourne Museum.

Pressed Orchids
Unlike their Asian counterparts, Australian orchids like the rosy spider orchid, pictured below, are beautifully understated. Delicate and beautiful, they are not flashy like the orchids available at your local nursery.

Butterflies of the night
The aim of the "George Lyell Collection: Australian entomology past and present" project is to examine the George Lyell collection scientifically and culturally, and to share discoveries with the wider community.

Moths are beautiful too
At October's Nocturnal event, a multidisciplinary team of Museum workers and a guest speaker from University of Melbourne got together to present items from the George Lyell Collection to visitors.

The sting of the final letter
Transcribing George Lyell's final documents.