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 and Innovation’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
Collection Management Course
Registrations have closedWe are happy to announce that we have 75 participants in the Collection Management Course. A briefing session was held on 19 May, as well as the first webinar for the course, covering collection ethics, chapter 9 of the Collection Management...
Gone but not forgotten
David Allan, Photographic Competition Winner: The most iconic specimenI describe the Dodo Skeleton as a first-hand view back into a lost past. It is one of the two most complete skeletons of the Dodo anywhere in the world. Did you know? Dodos were a type of pigeon....
Investigating differences between current and historical distributions of reptiles and amphibians in the Free State using citizen science – Cora Stobie & Michael Bates
In our project we aim to update our understanding by using citizen science approaches to gather information pertaining to occurrence of any and all reptile and amphibian species in the Free State. We have created a Facebook group, Free State Reptiles and Amphibians (including adjacent areas and Lesotho) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeStateHerps) which we use to promote and gather photographic or videographic records of reptiles and amphibians in the Free State.
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.
