now i don't want to alarm you people of the web wide world, but there was a murder investigation going on at te papa it turns out while i was there!!!
now before you panic people of the innerweb... as admittedly i did initially... it wasn't a real murder. rather just a fake one that visitors to the museum could help try to "solve".as i came to understand it this was a museum version of the board game clue (or cluedo they call it down here in new zealand), but instead of a board you actually got to walk around the various suspects labs and dwellings looking for the clues!!!
now sadly due to my needing to get rid of the maori flax baskets i couldn't really partake in the activity. i did a quick run through though, and it looked like a lot of fun. if only my work wasn't so potentially dangerous (i really wanted to keep my hard earned head start on whiro on the north island)...
from what i could tell... having not actually played the museum's game... the display was thrown together with various unused bits of the museum's collections. now this might sound bad, but it's actually a really good idea... most museum's only display 25% or lower of their items to the public. the rest of it just sits in collections (a good place for it mind you, but unless you work there you never get to see it).
so there was some pretty cool stuff on display.
all manners of animal remains.
a cool mock up laboratory with neon test tubes ad everything...
one of my favourites was the museum had made up for the bug collecting suspect a bunch of fake scheme plans for the suspect. this included a model they'd build envisioning growing some of their tarantulas to huge size and unleashing them on the world.
be scary if it was real plan, but clever fun way of using existing museum specimens!
the intact snake skeleton was awesome. i never get sick of looking at these mosasaur relatives. the evolutionary outcome of them losing their legs (or possibly paddles ;p ) is amazing.
looked like te papa had been in contact with my old boss at the vancouver eco centre, and purchased some of his huge giant mutant insects. *shiver*... maybe that tarantula thing a second ago wasn't a "fake" plan after all...
my favourite item, which hopefully will stay on display, was the full size giant squid model they had in the fish suspect's area. i'd seen the otago aquariums colossal squid model (and maybe mistaken it for a real live squid), and this was just as cool.
i found out that a mere month ago they were dissecting the largest captured remains of a colossal squid in the world at te papa! man between that and missing lillian's visit here i was getting depressed by my visit here. fortunately te papa is such an impressive museum the experience wasn't tainted by these streaks of bad luck.
i just wish i'd come here a month ago is all!!!
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