Birthday Sharks

Whilst most people spend Christmas Eve getting ready for Christmas day, we spend it celebrating Catherine's birthday, and that usually involves some kind of outing.

This year Catherine had let drop the hint that she wanted to see an extensive exhibition about sharks at the Australian Museum in Sydney, so that's what we did.

It's pretty spectacular; there's lots of information boards and videos, as well as preserved specimens from the museum's collection and some lovely life-sized reproductions of various species.

Anyway, whilst I know that there are people here who would find sharks blog-worthy in their own right, this post was really an excuse to post a few pictures I took that wargamers might find of interest.

Part of the exhibition looked at various Pacific island-groups and nations and how sharks were part of their culture and folklore. I dropped the ball here by not making any notes on some of the mythology and folklore stuff which may of been use to fantasy gamers, but I did get some pictures of some of the weapons and armour on display.

These are two-handed cutting weapons from Kiribati. They're a decent size and, as you can see, edged with shark-teeth.

To protect against them, the natives of Kiribati wore suits of armour. This was made up of a set of overalls and sleeves made from coconut fibre, with a coconut fibre cuirass worn over the top. The  cuirass had a high backboard to protect from attack from behind, and was often worn with thick belts made from woven coconut fiber or dried ray skin to protect the vital organs. The armour decorated, either with human hair, feathers or shells.

The armour was worn with a helmet mad from a dried puffer-fish.

Warriors also sometimes carried knuckle-dusters edged with shark-teeth. These are from Hawaii.

This is a small club or hand-weapon from Hawaii.

For those that love the bizarre, this is a reconstruction of Helicoprion, an extinct shark from the Permian shark with a distinctive helical lower jaw. As the shark closed its lower jaw, the teeth would fold back into the mouth, dragging and cutting anything the shark had caught. It is thought that whilst it fed on soft-bodied animals, it could also use this jaw to deshell such creatures as nautilids, ammonites and belemnites.

And, finally, here is the birthday-girl herself, standing inside a reconstruction of a Megalodon jaw.