Professor Dakin's photograph of snapping shrimps

For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Curator of Natural History Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum Dr Anthony Gill. In the lead up to National Science Week and the new exhibition Australian Seashores opening at the Chau Chak Wing Museum in August 2022, they discuss a photograph in the collection taken in the late 1940s in preparation for the book Australian Seashores.

Professor William John Dakin (1883-1950), professor of zoology at the University of Sydney from 1929 until 1950, along with Elizabeth Pope and Isobel Bennett compiled the book Australian Seashores which was first published posthumously in 1952. Among the many photographs donated to the Macleay Museum collection in the 1980s by Dakin's family was an image of snapping shrimps taken in the 1940s.

Tony and Craig discuss the snapping shrimp and the discovery of how the shrimp is able to create a noise by closing its claw so rapidly it creates shock waves, the importance of natural history collections, curating natural history exhibitions, Dakin's work and legacy and the role of citizen scientists.

Guest: Dr Anthony Gill is a fish taxonomist, with decades of museum experience in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. He is Curator, Natural History Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Photograph of two snapping shrimps with a third claw next used in the book Australian Seashores in 1952 [HP84.7.38.1]