The South African government’s Covid-19 portal at sacoronavirus.co.za site contains information about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, plus statistics on its spread in SA and related government press releases.
The Natural Science Collections Facility is a network of South African institutions holding natural science collections, established as part of the Department of Science & Technology’s Research Infrastructure Roadmap and co-ordinated by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Participating institutions are committed to collaborating to achieve the following objectives:
Collections secured and accessible physically and virtually for research
Data from specimens in collections accessible and used for managing collections, research and decision-making
Research on collections and associated data addresses issues of national and global relevance
Collections and associated research provide services to identify natural science specimens for a range of stakeholders including in the agriculture, health, environmental management and academic sectors
Latest News
Call for Presentations: Parallel Sessions | NSCF Virtual Forum 2022
You are invited to come and share your work, learnings, thoughts, ideas and exciting discoveries with the community. Day 2 of the Forum will consist of 3 parallel sessions in which you can contribute. We would like you to make presentations in parallel sessions 1 and...
Call For Creative Talent | NSCF Virtual Forum 2022
Do you have a talent that you would like to share with the NSCF Community? Though we are in a scientific field, some of us may possess artistic skills and gifts that we excel in and enjoy practicing. We would like to use the Forum as a platform to celebrate the...
Programme and Registration | NSCF Virtual Forum 2022
Good news! You can now properly plan for the Forum. Download the Forum Programme in the link below and Register! In the programme you will find the following: An introduction to the Iqoqwana Initiative: Facilitated Self-Assessments of the Natural Science Collections,...
New species described from South African collections
New tanaidacean described
Sinelobus stromatoliticus sp. nov., a tanaidacean (small shrimp-like animal) living within laminated stromatolites along the South African coastline, has been described. A revised key to all the species currently recognised within this genus is also provided. The type...
New bristle worm described from South Africa
A new species of polychaete (bristle worm), Rhynchospio mzansi, was recently described from the south coast of South Africa. The specimens were collected from sediment within the effluent outflow from an abalone farm bear Gansbaai, South Africa. The name of the new...
New Discovery: First African fossils of Devonian tetrapods
The first African Devonian tetrapods were discovered by Dr Robert Gess of the Albany Museum and described in June 2018 in Science by him and Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University in Sweden.
The two new species, named Tutusius and Umzantsia, are Africa’s earliest known four-legged vertebrates by a remarkable 70 million years.
Iconic specimens
Oldest specimen in the National Herbarium
The oldest preserved plant specimen in the National Herbarium, Pretoria, is Erica mammosa.
The coelacanth, thought to have gone extinct about 65 million years ago
The coelacanth was known from fossils dating from about 360 years ago.
Use of Collections

Shale Gas Exploration SEA

Barcode of Wildlife Project

Red List Assessments
Virtual Museum
The NSCF aims to increase the accessibility and use of natural science collections for research and also to secure collections.
One mechanism of achieving both these objectives is to establish a “virtual museum” which will take the form of detailed images of important specimens such as types, and to also provide digital access to documents such as historical field notes, old catalogue books and accession registers and other documents related to the collections. Over the next two years we will initiate a project to digitise specimens and important documents and to make these available online. We also aim to show some of the collection store rooms online to provide a sense of the scope and scale of these for the public who rarely have the chance to see these hidden treasures.


