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Short note : Torres Strait to Tasmania: nationally significant butterfly collection housed at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston
Full text linkIn 2019 the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston received a donation of one of Australia’s largest and most significant private butterfly collections. The Lambkin-Knight collection, containing around 12,000 Australian including Tasmanian specimens, provides an invaluable reference point for butterfly identification, distribution and climate-change related research and has already resulted in over 30 scientific publications
Contents page for Volume 155 Part 2, Council and Office Bearers from March 2021 to March 2022
Full text linkContents page for Volume 155 Part 2 of the Papers and Proceedings of The Royal Society of Tasmania. Includes Council and Office Bearers from March 2021 to March 202
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century
Full text linkOur understanding of the history of vegetation change after the British invasion of Tasmania is limited. The Queens Domain in Hobart is an area of remnant grassy woodland that provides the opportunity to document such vegetation change and its causes using historical images and reports. Tree removal, stock grazing, and the consequent reduction in the incidence of fire appear to have resulted in a decline in tree cover after European settlement, reaching a nadir during 1861–1880. Paintings and photographs indicated a sharp increase in tree cover between 1921 and 1941, associated with the banning of stock grazing. This increase appears to have been encouraged, rather than hindered, by the increasing frequency of low-intensity fire resulting from a reduction in grazing pressure
Sheltering knowledge : residences of the Royal Society of Tasmania and its precursors, 1838 to 2021
Full text linkThe Royal Society of Tasmania and its precursors have met and stored their collections in at least eight different buildings in Hobart and several in Launceston since Sir John and Lady Franklin started a scientific society in 1838. Those built for the specific purpose of housing collections initiated by the societies remain as important components of the built heritage of Tasmania. The choices of style and architect made by the Royal Society for its Tasmanian Museum contributed directly to, and through influence on, the character of the historic city centre of Hobar
Aquarium industry offers hope for Tasmania’s critically endangered handfish
Full text linkSoutheast Australia, and most notably Tasmania, is the last home to the Handfishes, a unique group of marine fish that use their fins for walking. A range of threats occur across all species, with four listed as endangered, two as critically endangered, and the Red Handfish now on the brink of extinction. This paper summarises the contribution being made to the national recovery of the Spotted Handfish and Red Handfish by a captive breeding project underway at Beauty Point in northern Tasmania. Information is provided on husbandry techniques, survival and growth rates in captivity and a trial underway to identify their reproductive strategies. This program highlights the contribution the aquarium industry can make to improving the survival of two of the world’s most unique species of marine fishes and the collaboratives efforts of those involved
Tyereelore and Straitsmen : the true story of Tasmanian Aboriginal survival
Full text linkMuch has been written, theorised and assumed about Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples and histories, but few representations of their life and culture have been recorded by the subjects themselves. This paper reiterates and expands on the conclusions drawn in previous work that tells the little-known history of the genesis of Tasmania’s contemporary Aboriginal communities. The lifeworld and identity of the unique cultural group formed by the Straitsmen and their female Aboriginal partners, the Tyereelore, on the small islands of eastern Bass Strait, has remained virtually undisclosed in colonial narratives. They were entrepreneurs and shrewd traders of the surplus from the sea and land and in partnership they thrived despite the harsh environment and their precarious position in the socio-economic landscape. Against all odds, their joint skillsets, adaptability and resilience ensured the survival of their descendants today
Channel to the Strait : the geological history of the Tamar Valley–Launceston area
No full textThe Tamar Valley occupies the Tamar Graben, a geological structure defined by a series of parallel NW-trending faults which have lowered the dolerite basement to below sea level. The resulting narrow trough, some 50 km long and 5 km wide, has been partially infilled with soft sands, clays and gravels, with intercalated basalt flows in places, of mainly Paleogene (lower Tertiary) age. Low hills of hard Jurassic dolerite define the structure on either side. The graben was formed during the break-up of Gondwana, the separation of Australia from Antarctica, and the making of Tasmania, in the Cretaceous-early Cenozoic period, some 70–140 million years ago (Ma). A spreading ridge had propagated eastwards through the Great Australian Bight but was unable to break through the Bass Strait area, and instead a large wedge of crust containing the future Tasmania was pulled away from the corner of Antarctica on a series of transcurrent faults. The associated crustal stretching in the Bass Strait area resulted in the formation of the deep ‘hole’ of Bass Basin, which had offshoots onto what became Tasmania, including the Tamar Graben. For much of its life, the Tamar River was a major feeder stream into the Bass Basin, carrying large volumes of sediment eroded from the Tasmanian highlands. The course of its major tributary, the South Esk River, within the southern part of the graben was completely blocked by basalt flows near the present Evandale about 35 Ma, forcing it into a new course to the west through the dolerite, to form the Cataract Gorge
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021
Full text linkOn Monday, 15 February 2021, the Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) delivered paired Apologies to the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The event was held in the Courtyard of TMAG, Hobart, and attended in person by about one hundred invited guests including members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, members of the Council of the RST and members of the Board of Trustees of TMAG. A large number of invited guests also witnessed the event by livestream. It was also the first time the Aboriginal flag had been flown at Customs House to commemorate the significance of this event
S. Warren Carey : New Guinea oil explorer (1934–1942)
Full text linkSamuel Warren Carey (1911–2002), Professor of Geology at the University of Tasmania from 1946 until 1976, was recognised internationally as a controversial extrovert in global tectonics. He joined Oil Search Ltd, and then the Australasian Petroleum Company working as a field geologist in New Guinea from 1934 until 1942. Carey and his colleagues carried out a heroic campaign of geology-based field exploration under the most difficult of conditions. Although their work did not find commercial hydrocarbons it paved the way for PNG’s current hydrocarbon industry. While his post-World War Two work is well documented through his publications and the reminiscences of those who worked with and were taught by him, his pioneering work as an explorer in the inhospitable environment of New Guinea before he took up his post in Tasmania is less well known and the subject of this paper
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s Expedition of Discovery II – The Flora and Fauna of Musselroe Wind Farm, Cape Portland, Northeast Tasmania
Full text linkFlora and fauna surveys were conducted at the Musselroe Wind Farm property in 2018 and 2019 as part of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s ongoing research, collection-building and nature-discovery program. The property was found to have significant ecological and nature conservation values and this survey program increases the number of vouchered taxa known for the area to 1336 primarily from the targeted groups of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, butterflies, moths, beetles, freshwater invertebrates, snails and slugs. Many threatened taxa were recorded and several of the taxa, chiefly lichens and invertebrates, are new to science or new records for Tasmania. This survey significantly expands our knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Cape Portland area and serves as a baseline for a property with a mix of farming and environmental conservation management