A new exhibition coming to the Waitaki Museum and Archive is a colossal deal for the recently renovated building.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa’s famous colossal squid - or more accurately, pieces of it - will be on display over the summer holidays as part of the touring exhibition Colossal Squid Ngu Tipua, from the Wellington-based national museum.

Arts, Culture and Libraries manager Chloe Searle says she hoped the museum redevelopment meant it would be able to fit some of the smaller touring exhibitions from Te Papa.

Colossal squid specimen are coming to Ōamaru. Photo: Supplied/Te Papa

“It's fabulous that as a national museum, they recognise not every family can always get to Wellington, so they develop these shows that can tour right around New Zealand, come to smaller towns, come to smaller museums, and that way everyone gets to have a taste of some of what Te Papa has on offer,” she says.

Nothing too difficult needs to take place to accommodate the exhibition, which has been designed to work with smaller museums.

“We don't get the whole squid, we get pieces of squid to look at and some interactive tables and things like that. So for us it's really just making sure the environment's right in terms of temperature and things like that to preserve those lovely scientific specimens.”  

The show opens on 12 December and runs until 16 February.

Waitaki Museum mostly holds exhibitions on social history, so Chloe says for her personally, its “wonderful” to be able to host an exhibition like this.

“To be able to put something on the floor that's really science-focused, and we know that's something that everyone in the community likes learning about, but especially for children, I think they have that real interest. 

Waitaki Arts, Culture and Libraries manager Chloe Searle. Photo: Ashley Smyth

“It's not quite dinosaurs, but it's got that same kind of amazing creature aspect to it. So I think I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of enthusiasm. And lots of family members bringing the kids in and getting excited about science.”

The colossal squid the specimens are coming from was caught in the southern ocean of Antarctica in 2007, and was four and a half metres long, weighing 500kg. 

The colossal squid is so rarely seen, only eight have ever been scientifically reported.

Te Papa’s head of Natural History, Phil Edgar, says that by learning about the “weird and mysterious creature,” they hope visitors will have a greater appreciation for life in the deep sea, much of which remains undiscovered.

The colossal squid beak . Photo: Supplied/Te Papa

Te Papa Invertebrates curator Dr Rodrigo Salvador says this squid has been very important for the science community and is popular with the public.

“Te Papa’s colossal squid has been a major source of information for scientists and the museum’s most popular exhibit since its debut. They live in the deep Antarctic waters and despite being one of the largest invertebrate species in existence, they are very rarely captured.”

Colossal Squid Ngu Tipua centres around an interactive table displaying many different objects including the lens from its eye, part of a tentacle, and a complete tiny squid - a miniature of its colossal relative. Touchable rotating models of a squid’s tentacle hook and beak will also be displayed.

The exhibition also includes two documentaries which show life in the depths of the Southern Ocean, and how the most complete colossal squid ever found ended up at Te Papa.