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.

 

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 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.

 

Mammal Virtual Museum

Date started: July 2010
Web page: http://www.capeleopard.org.za/

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

VIMMA consists of digital photographic records of mammals along with accurate geographical coordinates of where the pictures were taken. VIMMA is limited to wild (or feral) mammals. So domestic animals are excluded, and so is Homo sapiens. Records for species which are abundant and in places where they are well-known to occur, such as Impala in the Kruger National Park, are superfluous. But the golden rule that applies is: If in doubt, submit.