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
Webinar Invite | The stuffed, stoned, pickled and pinned saving our living planet
Something special for our scientists to get involved in...we are excited about the webinar series on the value of our collections. This is directly connected to the showcase in that, the webinar guests will be those that contributed to the showcase. The purpose of...
The story of the discovery of the Taung Skull
Bernhard Zipfel, Photographic Competition Second Runner-up: The most iconic specimenTaung is a village situated in the North West Province approximately 80 km North of Kimberley. In 1924 Taung was the site of a limestone quarry. Limestone has many different uses. For...
Old Fourlegs
Louanne Kirton, Photographic Competition Second Runner-up: The ugliest specimenOn 22 December 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the Curator of the East London Museum, received a call from the Captain of the Nerine fishing trawler, Hendrik Goosen. He had just returned...
New species described from South African collections
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Iconic specimens
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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.
