3. Marine Marvels

During Nicolas Baudin’s (1800 -1804) expedition, the scientists aboard the Géographe and Naturaliste amassed an extensive collection of Australian fauna and flora, including the first major marine collections from Australian waters. The careful collecting of specimens, documentation, labels, drawings and descriptions of the organisms they found produced a wealth of data on these species, and provided European scientists with an understanding of Australian biodiversity. 

The food you see in the black cooking pot in the gallery before you is called trepang. This is the Indonesian name for an edible marine invertebrate also known as ‘sea cucumber’. Long considered a delicacy in many Asian cultures, the gallery model shows the processed trepang after boiling, drying and smoking.  The natural sea cucumber pictured on this page (Holothuria thalassina) was studied and drawn by one of Baudin’s expedition artists, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur. 

Indonesian fishers had been coming to Australia for centuries to gather trepang, where it was traded for use in the preparation of Chinese cuisine and traditional remedies. In late April 1803, in the far north-western waters of Western Australia, the Baudin expedition encountered large numbers of holothurians found there. At nearby Cassini Island, they saw a “Malay” (Indonesian) flotilla consisting of 20 praus. Lesueur and expedition naturalist François Péron were invited to board one of the vessels. Whilst Lesueur made sketches, Péron spoke with the captain, who told them the flotilla was fishing for sea cucumbers and that the industry had existed for untold generations on this coast. 

At Shark Bay, the expedition took many observations and specimens of other marine wonders, including jellyfish, molluscs, and sea snakes. They recorded an abundance of fish, reporting that 600 pounds of fish were caught from the Géographe on the first day alone. Six types of fish undescribed by European science were recorded, and expedition naturalist François Péron considered that no other country in the world was as rich in fish species as the Shark Bay region – “No place in the world can be as fishy as Shark Bay”. 

Using pencil, paints and fine camel-haired brushes, the task of the expedition artists was often challenging as they sketched, drew and painted in wild seas. Some expedition scientists became hopelessly lost whilst venturing on land, needing search parties to retrieve them to the ship; and some were swept by waves across rocks on the coast, causing significant injury. 

Marine specimens were often scooped up from the sea onto the ship, using a small, close-meshed pouch fitted onto a very long piece of wood. These animals were dissected, studied and drawn. Sketches were often colour coded so the artists could replicate their palette later, as the vivid colours faded fast after fish were hauled from the sea. The ships smelled of the rotting marine specimens on deck, as well as the stench of the other live animals captured for transportation back to France. Many specimens were later eaten by the hungry crew, including sharks, dolphin, turtles and birds. An albatross was reported to have been prepared as a fairly successful ragout (a thick stew) and, at Shark Bay, Baudin “preferred the dog-fish to kangaroo and especially enjoyed the oysters”.

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and his fellow artist Nicolas-Martin Petit made important contributions to science with their detailed and beautiful drawings and paintings of birds, animals and marine creatures.