The Australian Museum

There are 44 bird specimens, and over 24 eggs in the display, which were arranged using photographs and sketches of the nesting site for accuracy.

These skeletons are known as ‘The Bone Ranger’ by museum staff and visitors – and depict a person riding a horse rearing up on its hind legs. Horses were essential to farming, industry, and travel in Colonial Australia...

...and are important in many stories about Australia – from travelling in the bush to sport, and racing. The horse skeleton displayed here is that of Sir Hercules, one of the greatest thoroughbred stallions in Australia.

Although he never raced, Sir Hercules sired many big race winners – including The Barb, the winner of the 1866 Melbourne Cup. After his death in 1865, Sir Hercules’ skeleton was presented to the Australian Museum, and it has been on display here since 1873.

The Leopard you can see here has a Guinea Fowl in its mouth. Leopards feed off many different kinds of animals, and often haul their prey into trees to avoid it being stolen by other animals.Leopards are found in more parts of the world than any other of the large cat species...

...and are found especially in Asia and Africa. They are threatened as a species because humans have destroyed their habitat. Leopards sometimes prey on animals as large as antelopes, which can be two or three times their size.

Giraffes are the tallest living animal in the world, reaching up to 6 metres in height. This means that their bodies have to have many special features to cope with their height. Their hearts have very thick walls, and the ligaments of their legs and neck are very strong...

...to make sure that blood can easily reach their brains, which are three metres away from their hearts! Giraffes are not endangered, and live on the grassy plains in Africa.

Despite their long necks, giraffes have seven neck bones, just like all other mammals, including humans!

Inside this glass case is a specimen of a tapir – a very unusual-looking animal, related to horses and rhinoceroses. Tapirs are found in South America and Asia. Tapirs have very flexible and sensitive trunks, which they use to grasp food, such as leaves, flowers, fruit and bugs.

Tapirs are solitary creatures, and they are threatened by habitat loss, hunting and disease.

Wild Planet explores this Tree, revealing our ancestral histories and relationships to other animals, and explaining how it helps us protect and conserve diverse kinds of life.  

...so their blood is sometimes used to test if medical equipment is sterile and safe to use.

Despite its name, the Horseshoe Crab is more closely related to spiders and scorpions than true crabs. It has hard, curved armour that protects its soft body from predators. It is a good example of a ‘living fossil’, because it has not changed...

much in the 450 million years that it has existed on Earth. The number of horseshoe crabs in the wild has decreased recently, mostly because of pollution of their habitat and hunting.Horseshoe crabs have copper-based blood that clots when it comes in contact with bacteria...

Platypuses are monotremes, or mammals that lay eggs. Monotremes have been around longer than any other group of living mammals, but are now very rare – they are only found today in Australia and New Guinea.

Platypuses have webbed feet and waterproof fur, as well as distinctive, duck-like bills, which they use to find food on the bottom of rivers. They are very common throughout eastern and south-eastern Australia, but Platypuses are increasingly threatened by the degradation of their habitat by humans.

The Tree of Life is a diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of all life forms. The length of each branch shows how unique each species is – for example, the Aardvark sits alone on its branch and has no other relatives within its order.

If we lose branches on the Tree of Life, we lose history and evolutionary diversity. Branches can be broken through human causes such as climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and hunting – all of which put animals at risk of extinction. 

The Black Rhinoceros is one of the most endangered animals in the world, because land clearing has destroyed much of its habitat, and it was hunted for many years for its horn.

Almost of the remaining Black Rhinoceroses are found in sanctuaries and protection zones so that they can be kept safe. The name rhinoceros means ‘horned nose’. Rhinoceroses are one of the biggest animals in the world.

Tigers are the world’s largest living cat – they sometimes weigh more than 300 kg. They are now at risk of extinction because of illegal hunting for their skins, bones and teeth, as well as habitat loss. 
Fun fact – tigers are very strong swimmers, unlike most other cats!

The American Black Bear is the world’s most common bear. Bears are very intelligent animals, and they have better senses of smell and hearing than humans. American Black Bears eat berries, nuts, insects, fish and other smaller animals.

They tend to avoid humans, but they can still be very dangerous – so people often hunt them for sport and protection. In winter, bears spend three to five months hibernating in their dens, and during this time they do not eat or drink!