Tour the Herpetology Collections with Jofred Opperman!

Behind-the-Collections: a window into the Iziko Museums' Natural History Collections

The Iziko Collections Department has launched a new video series, set to showcase an aspect of Iziko’s extraordinary collections each month, and published on Iziko’s YouTube channel. The idea behind the videos for YouTube was to increase Iziko's YouTube offerings from the Collections side – becoming a great way for the public to get “behind-the-collections” and learn more about the objects and artefacts that represent South Africa’s diverse natural histories.

Scholars and researchers at Iziko Museums – and from across the globe – access these vast collections to research, better understand, and expand upon our knowledge; and now, through this YouTube video series, you too can explore Iziko’s collections!

In this video Jofred Opperman (Collections Manager: Terrestrial Vertebrates)
takes viewers on a tour of the Herpetology Collections!

Herpetology is the study of “creeping animals” such as reptiles and amphibians. Here the collections manager gives a brief overview of specimens and their use in these collections. The collection mostly consists of ethanol preserved specimens but also holds a small number of comparative skeletons primarily used for identification purposes by archaeologists and palaeontologists. Southern African species are well represented along with some foreign species as well.