Welcome to the

Virtual Museum

Animal Demography Unit -- Department of Zoology
University of Cape Town

                               

The Virtual Museum (VM) provides the platform for citizen scientists to contribute to biodiversity projects. This innovative concept was developed by the Animal Demography Unit. For many people, a “museum” is a place to see stuffed animals on display. But the ADU’s Virtual Museum is not like this. The scientific part of a museum contains collections of specimens, frequently large numbers of specimens of the same species from different parts of the range, all carefully preserved and labelled with the date and place where they were collected. The ADU’s Virtual Museum is like this, except that instead of specimens in draws or bottles, we have digital photographs arranged in a database.

Members of the public are encouraged to submit digital photographs for the Virtual Museums listed below, along with certain basic information. Species identifications can be made by the observers, and are confirmed by a panel of experts. Distribution maps for each species are available online and serve as conservation and education tools. These maps include Virtual Museum records and sometimes also other distributional records which are contained within the ADU’s databases.

Virtual Museum records help expand the distribution databases for these taxa; they not only confirm the presence of a species at a particular point in time, but they also provide new distribution records for species and sometimes lead to extensions of the known range of a species.

 

Birds with Odd Plumages

Date started: 2012-03-13 14:42:59

Birds with all sorts of unusual plumage variations are observed from time to time. Nowadays, with digital photography, pictures of these birds are frequently available. BOP (Birds with Odd Plumage) aims to provide a place where the photographs can be curated into one database. Any bird with any unusual plumage characteristic qualifies for inclusion in the virtual museum. This will provide the opportunity to look for patterns. Do certain species have abnormal plumage more frequently than others? Do unusual plumage patterns occur more in some places than in others?

 

Odonata of southern Africa

Date started: 22-Sep-2010

The Odonata VM aims to improve the sparse knowledge of the geographic distribution of this striking group of insects; many species are only known from a handful of localities. This project provides an easy way of collecting and curating distribution records.
To participate in the Odonata VM you need to be a registered ADU observer. Close-up photographs of dragonflies or damselflies, along with date and locality information, including geographic coordinates are submited to the VM in the data upload section (available to logged users). The Virtual Museum allows you to upload a maximum of three images per record.
Please take the GPS coordinates as accurately as possible; alternatively you can also find your position on the Google Map available in the upload page, but this may be difficult if you are away from good landmarks.

 

Photos of Weaver Nests

Date started: July 2008
Web page: http://weavers.adu.org.za/

PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests) is a conservation project aimed at determining the distribution of colonies or nests of all weaver species globally. Counting weaver nests and taking photos allows monitoring of changes in weaver breeding effort. Many weavers are common while some weaver species are threatened; this project provides an easy way of monitoring them.

PHOWN is a project of the Animal Demography Unit (Department of Zoology, University of Cape Town).

 

Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment

Date started: May 2007
Web page: http://sabca.adu.org.za

SABCA is a conservation project aimed at determining the distribution and conservation priorities of all butterfly species in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

SABCA is a joint project of the Animal Demography Unit (Department of Zoology, University of Cape Town), the South African National Biodiversity Institute and The Lepidopterists' Society of Africa.

 

Southern African Frog Atlas Project

Date started: 1996
Web page: http://adu.org.za/frog_atlas.php

Distribution data collected during seven years of fieldwork (1996-2003), plus earlier data compiled from museum records, private collections, the literature and conservation agencies.

Data was used for the 2003 red listing of all frog species of the region, the results were published in the bookAtlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

 

Southern African Reptile Conservation Assessment

Date started: 10 May 2005
Web page: http://sarca.adu.org.za

SARCA aims to improve our understanding of the diversity and distribution of reptiles in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, and thereby make possible an improvement in the conservation status of these animals.

SARCA also aims to improve public awareness of the value and plight of reptiles and also provide conservation agencies with a clear definition of conservation priorities that will help them to plan their activities.

 

Virtual Museum of African Mammals

Date started: July 2010
Web page: http://mammalmap.adu.org.za/

The Cape Leopard Trust and the Animal Demography Unit are collaborating to develop a Virtual Museum for Mammals, MammalMAP (formerly VIMMA), which will act as a repository for distribution records of mammal species in the whole of Africa.

MammalMAP consists of digital photographic records of mammals along with accurate geographical coordinates of where the pictures were taken. MammalMAP is limited to wild (or feral) mammals. So domestic animals are excluded, and so is Homo sapiens. But the golden rule that applies is: If in doubt, submit.

 

Virtual Tree Herbarium (ViTH)

Date started: 2010-12-01

Southern African Atlas of trees

Instructions for the Virtual Tree Herbarium:
Most trees can be identified with photographs of their bark, their leaves and their flowers and/or fruit. Try to take pictures of all of these, from the same tree. The Virtual Museum allows you to upload a maximum of three images per record. If you are a tree expert, and you know that a photograph of a particular feature provides certain identification, then you can upload just that picture into VITH.
Please take the GPS coordinates, as accurately as you are able, as close to the tree as feasible. You can enter these into VITH in three formats (decimal degrees DD.DDDDD, degrees and decimal minutes DD MM.MMM, and degree minutes and decimal seconds DD MM SS.S). You can also find your position on the Google Map, but this may be difficult if you are away from good landmarks.
If you are walking a transect, the strategy we would suggest you adopt is to take a set of photographs of each species you encounter. Feel free to repeat a species if about a kilometre has passed since last you photographed it.