Museum of Tropical Queensland

Fast facts

 During the first two years of operation, the museum was known as Queensland Museum, North Queensland Branch until it was renamed as the Museum of Tropical Queensland in 1989-90.

 The Museum of Tropical Queensland is the northern most campus of the Queensland Museum and shares the stories of North Queensland’s heritage.

 The ‘new’ Museum of Tropical Queensland building was architecturally designed and purpose-built in 2000. The main gallery in the museum features a true-to-size re- creation of the bow of HMS Pandora, the ship sent by British Admiralty in 1790 to capture the Bounty and her mutinous crew.

 The Museum of Tropical Queensland showcases objects recovered from the wreck of Pandora which was rediscovered in 1977.

 In 2010-11, the Museum of Tropical Queensland experienced record visitor numbers attracting just under 100,000 visitors.

 The Museum of Tropical Queensland’s peak visitation periods are January and July each year, coinciding with the staging of two of its most popular holiday programs in Creepy Crawlies Alive and Dino Discoveries.

 The Museum of Tropical Queensland has won 14 North Queensland Tourism Awards and has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice for consecutive wins in the Heritage and Cultural Tourism category.

 The Historical Diving Society of the United States awarded The Museum of Tropical Queensland, together with the donor of the Langley Diving Collection, with its prestigious Nick Icorn Award in 2009 for the Museum’s contribution to diving history education. Behind the scenes

 A day in the life of a Museum Preparator - crocs, cannons and Cowboys! The Museum’s Preparator takes on many different tasks from exhibition installation and maintenance to making ‘things’ come to life. Moulding and casting objects is a huge part of our Preparator’s role and some of his moulding and casting highlights are: a five foot live crocodile, cannons from HMS Pandora and HMS Bounty and the torsos of players from the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys NRL team (the latter for a fundraising event).

 The Museum of Tropical Queensland is home to the Staghorn corals of the World Collection. Staghorn corals are the main reef-building corals in the world today. Around 25,000 specimens from Australia and around the world are housed at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. This collection is providing the basis for confirmation of species for a myriad of scientific studies seeking to understand the evolution and biogeography of coral reefs as well to ensure the care and protection of living coral reefs worldwide.

 Eureka! In 1984 the journal Science published the first description of mass-spawning of reef corals, seen at Magnetic Island by a group of researchers from James Cook University including Dr Carden Wallace. Dr Wallace continued her research on mass- coral spawning based at the Museum of Tropical Queensland and in 1992 Dr Wallace and her research group was presented with the prestigious Eureka prize for environmental research.

 A silver and gold fob watch recovered from the wreck of HMS Pandora, thought to belong to Pandora’s surgeon Dr Hamilton underwent conservation treatment after which it was revealed that with the addition of just a few metal springs it could be made to work again, even after 186 years undersea.

 A trio of Polynesian war clubs are arguably the most significant objects in the Pandora collection. The importance of these ‘curiosities’ is that they can be exactly dated because they were collected by the crew during the short period they were at Matavai Bay during April and May in 1791. Anthropologists can use these objects as a reference point to compare with undatable objects to identify stylistic changes in traditional manufacturing methods over time.

 Australia’s oldest heritage dive helmet and the second oldest known diving helmet in the world, the Augustus Siebe helmet manufactured in 1870 is part of the Museum of Tropical Queensland’s Langley Diving Collection donated by the Langley family of Hobart.