If you needed a reason to do something vaguely wholesome today, David Attenborough turning 100 is a pretty solid one.
And instead of just posting a clip from Planet Earth and calling it a day, the Australian Museum is throwing open the doors to its Bloodsuckers: Nature’s Vampires exhibition for free across the weekend (May 8–10).
Yes, it’s a bit grim on paper. Creatures that feed on blood aren’t exactly crowd-pleasers. But that’s also very Attenborough-coded – spending a lifetime convincing people that the weird, overlooked and slightly off-putting parts of nature are worth paying attention to.
The exhibition leans right into that. Vampire bats, leeches, mosquitoes, ticks – plus the science behind how they do what they do, and why they matter.
The museum’s connection to Attenborough runs deep too. He’s been involved with the AM for over 40 years, from touring its fossil collections to spotlighting its Lizard Island Research Station in his Great Barrier Reef docs. They even named a Tasmanian semi-slug after him back in 2017 (Attenborougharion rubicundus), which he somehow described as beautiful.
There’s also a nice extra layer to it all: visitors can leave birthday messages for him while they’re there, with letter-writing and drawing stations set up in the main hall.
If you’ve been meaning to check the exhibition out, this is your window. It’s usually ticketed and runs through to October, but this weekend it’s free – you just need to lock in a timeslot online (here).
Not a bad way to spend Attenborough’s 100th.
