What we’re excited to see again

One of my favourite objects on display is small and tucked away in a space that is easy to walk past without seeing. It’s a mother-of-pearl and silver crucifix which was retrieved by a British soldier from the ruins of a shelled abbey in the vicinity of Ypres / Messines in West Flanders, sometime between August & November 1914 during the first fierce struggles for control of Belgium. 

The crucifix is a reminder that those who are thrust into the horror of battle don't automatically lose their own values and empathy for the experience of others. Many found some solace and relief in small acts of kindness and humaneness. 

Although we cannot know what was in the mind of the soldier who picked up this crucifix in its leather pouch, noticing and saving a small devotional object that otherwise would be lost in a sea of devastation, even though it would never be reunited with its owner, could be an example of such compassion.

The crucifix can be found in a niche in the wall of the walk-through western front trench in the Scars on the Heart First World War gallery on Level 2.

I love the pair of these Mercury Islands tusked wētā displayed in Te Ao Tūroa, or the Māori natural history gallery. 

They are the rarest and most endangered wētā species in Aotearoa. Males have these spectacular tusks on their jaws and use them to fight in territorial disputes. For such a large insect (length 7-9cm), they were only discovered in 1970 on one of the small islands of the Mercury group off the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.

On the verge of extinction, one male and two females were brought to Auckland for a captive breeding programme. This programme has allowed their descendants to be liberated on other islands in the Mercury group, as well as Cuvier Island. This pair played their part in a successful conservation programme and died of old age after having made babies.

When I get back in the office, I am looking forward to hanging out with our bird bone collection! This is not as weird as you might think as bird bones are very cool for a number of reasons. First, they are super lightweight - snap a roast chicken thigh bone in half and you will find it is filled with air. These spaces are amazingly connected to the animal’s lungs, giving it greater oxygen storage capacity. Second, they have adapted to so many different lifestyles that their skeletons can be wondrously different between species. Finally, they have fused lots of their bones together, meaning way less bones to do the same job.

I love this North Island giant moa Dinornis novaezealandiae Moa pelvis, collected early last century from the Hawke's Bay. It is made up of three fused bones, stained brown from the swamp waters in which it was collected. If you didn’t know better, it could easily be mistaken for the skull of an alien from the 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Predator.