photographs supplied by Marienne de
Villiers
Painted Lady butterfly Cape Dwarf Chameleon
VIRTUAL FIRSTS:
THE REPTILE AND BUTTERFLY ON-LINE MUSEUMS by Marienne de Villiers & Silvia Mecenero
SARCA (Southern African Reptile Conservation Assessment) http://sarca.adu.org.za was launched by the ADU (UCT) and SANBI in 2005.
This year SABCA (Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment),
http://butterflies.adu.org.za
a sister-project focused on butterflies, was launched. Butterflies and reptiles are both under-appreciated components of South Africa’s natural heritage. There are close to 500 species of reptiles in Southern Africa, compared to 680 species of resident breeding birds. In South Africa alone, there are 671 butterfly species.
Despite this richness, butterflies and reptiles tend to be overlooked in conservation plans, partly because available information is very incomplete and not easy to access. SABCA and SARCA aim at improving our knowledge of the distribution in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland of the species within these two extremely diverse animal groups. By compiling an up-to-date Atlas and Red Data Book for each group, the projects will provide conservation agencies with a clear definition of conservation priorities and will thereby facilitate an improvement in the conservation status of species.
An important facet of both projects is public participation. Reptiles in particular are in dire need of a public facelift. An improved understanding and appreciation for this much maligned group is essential for effective conservation. SABCA and SARCA not only work at educating members of the public about butterflies and reptiles, but also rope in the public to help collect distributional data.
Anyone with email and a camera can take part, by sending in photos of animals and accompanying locality data to the projects
sarca@adu.org.za and sabca@adu.org.za
Detailed instructions on how to participate are on the project websites.
Back at the ADU, data technicians capture the data which are then uploaded onto the Virtual Museums on the project websites, where the photographic records are freely available for anyone to view. The reptile museum, just over three years old, currently houses 4800 records. The butterfly atlas, comparatively young, houses about 2700 records.
We need your photographic records! Whether from your garden or from a remote place in the country, all records are valuable to us.
How you can help
SUBMITTING REPTILE RECORDS TO THE SARCA VIRTUAL MUSEUM
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Send an email to SARCA.
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Attach your jpeg files, FOR ONE ANIMAL ONLY, to the message.
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The covering message MUST be according to the following format.
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Cut and paste the following lines into your email and replace the examples
[outside the square brackets] with your own information. -
The [begin] and [end] lines remain unchanged.
[begin]
[SARCA]
[observer name] Botha W.
[coordinates latitude] 24 34 13 S
[coordinates longitude] 27 23 42 E
[locality] farm Doornhoek; Thabazimbi district.
[province] Limpopo Province
[country] South Africa
[date] 2005/08/27
[number of photos] 2
[notes]
[end]
ALL of the information listed above
MUST be provided, otherwise your photos cannot be used. The Project Coordinator will acknowledge your submission by email.
The address for submissions is sarca@adu.org.za
NB: Do NOT send prints by post. It is too labour-intensive to scan prints - we can only use digital photos. If you do the scanning yourself and email us the jpeg files, that's fine.
NB: Send no more than three pictures of any particular animal - select only your best pics.
NB: For every animal photographed, send a separate email. This is important because it avoids confusion between animals, and between the coordinates, dates and locality information for each animal.
Check for acknowledgement of your record and an identification of the animal.
This should be available on the relevant page of the website http://sarca.adu.org.za
within 30 days of submission.
