Modern science’s rapidly evolving techniques are pretty impressive, but the big secrets of the animal world continue to keep our scientists guessing. In this episode, ancient creatures of Central Australia are unearthed by Australian Museum palaeontolgist Patrick Smith, while back in the present, frog expert Jodi Rowley hunts for answers to explain the mass frog die-off that plagues the eastern states. The combined power of the Australian Museum collections and citizen science may just offer some answers. A First Nations' take on the significance of the Eel offers a new understanding of this elusive creature and clues as to how we might reboot our connection to the natural world.

Guests: Dr Patrick Smith, Dr Jodi Rowley and Sara Judge 

Host: Alice Gage

Find images, extra stories and transcript at australian.museum/explore

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Sara Kianga Judge is a Neurodiverse Walbunja-Yuin woman born and grown up on Burramattagal Country. She is an environmental scientist, geographer, and artist who is passionate about accessible science communication and helping people to grow meaningful relationships with Country. As First Nations Content Producer at the Australian Museum, Sara is currently working on Burra – a many-ways learning place that shows how western science and First Nations knowledges can work together. 

Dr Jodi Rowley is the Curator of Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, leading the Herpetology department, at the Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum & Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Sydney. She is the lead scientist on the FrogID project. Jodi is a biologist with a focus on amphibian diversity, ecology and conservation, and a passion for communicating biodiversity conservation. Her research seeks to uncover and document biodiversity, understand its drivers, and inform conservation decisions. Jodi focuses on amphibians because they have the greatest levels of undocumented diversity of any terrestrial vertebrate group, perform irreplaceable functions in many ecosystems and are being lost at an unprecedented rate. 

Dr Patrick Smith is a technical officer in the Palaeontology Collection at the Australian Museum Research Institute. He obtained a PhD at Macquarie University looking at Middle Cambrian (500–510 million year old) marine invertebrates from Ross River Gorge near Alice Springs in central Australia. He also was a previous curator at the Richmond Marine Fossil Museum (Kronosaurus Korner) in far northwest Queensland and a technical officer in the geology department at the University of New South Wales. Currently he is working to database the Australian Museum’s entire Palaeontology Collection. This includes all the material onsite, as well as the material at the museum offsite storage facility.  

Alice Gage is the producer, writer and host of the Australian Museum’s Explore podcast, and editor of Explore, its biannual magazine. Alice is an editor, writer and content creator interested in the nexus of science, cultural knowledge and art. She founded and published cult art journal Ampersand Magazine from 2009-2013. Alice lives on Bidjigal Country with her husband and their two little redheads. She holds an MA in Communications from Melbourne University and a BA in English from Sydney University. 

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