Collections

Collections are conserved in the Museum's main building, located 1, route de Malagnou, downtown. Most specimens are kept in alcohol, except a small number of them that are cleared and stained, dried or taxidermised, or whose we only have the skeleton. A new collection of tissues is also being developed for the purpose of molecular systematics analyses.

Amphibians

The batrachians collections are specially rich in tropical anourans. As far as the African fauna is concerned, the large series of material collected by Jean-Luc Perret and Raymond Laurent in sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Cameroun and Zaire) are to be noticed. The fauna from South-America is remarkably represented, especially because we can boast a large collection of batrachians from Ecuador, thanks to the efforts of Giovanni Onore and Jean-Marc Touzet; several missions accomplished by different collaborators of the Museum in Paraguay also allowed to collect a rich material from this country.

Reptiles

Reptiles collections are also important. One may particularly mention Eugen Kramer's collection of neotropical snakes(more than 15'000 specimens), but also the reptiles (specifically Colubridae from the Middle-East) collected by the former curator of the department, Beat Schätti, and finally African snakes and lizards, gathered during numerous missions of the Museum or collected by collaborators while staying in various countries on this continent (Jean-Luc Perret for instance). The commented catalogue of the types of amphibians and reptiles is accessible from this page, and a complete listing of the species represented in our collections will be available shortly.