Buttongrass Wonderland

NHP worked closely with the Tasmanian Museum & Gallery design team to bring to life a large-habitat display, which became the centre piece of the museum’s new natural history gallery.

The plinth was constructed to fit within the tight heritage constraints of the building.

Working alongside museum curators and science staff, NHP carefully installed preserved alpine button grass, mosses and lichens, to produce a habitat for an array of Tasmanian wildlife from the museum’s collection.

This included a large wombat, frogs, parrots, snakes, even an underground cutaway revealing land yabbies and native fish.

This large display incorporated audio, lighting and magnification interactives, as well as a custom built secure anterium, housing live jack-jumper ants.

Interestingly, this is little ant is responsible for the most wild animal caused deaths in Tasmania, more than sharks and snakes!

NHP and TMAG collaborated to bring together many complex elements from a broad field of science, technical and creative disciplines to produce the button grass wonderland.