About "The Herpetology Collection at the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart"

The Collection

The collection of amphibians and reptiles housed at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart (SMNS) contain some 22.000 individual specimens, spanning over all major zoogeographical regions. The collection includes 118 type specimens of amphibians and reptiles.

Some of the collection including valuable type material and the catalogue was destroyed during the bombing raids in world war II. After the war herpetology curators Heinz Wermuth (1962-1982) and more recent Andreas Schlüter (1984-2013) reconstructed most of the pre-war condition. During the curation of Andreas Schlüter the collection was much enhanced and the zoogeographical focus on the neotropics (Peru, Brazil and Guyana shield) was extended.

Data Project and Service

The first data package migrated to and made available through Diversity Workbench is the entire data-based herpetology collection. Taxonomy generally follows the hypothesis presented in the AMNH amphibian species of the world project and the EMBL reptile database.

The collection and the datasets are maintained and expanded. We welcome notices concerning errors and misunderstandings.

The Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts in Baden-Württemberg supported inventory, digitalisation and online access of the collections. Technical support is provided by the IT Center of the Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns within the projects BiNHum (Biodiversity Network of the Humboldt-Ring) and GFBio (German Federation for the Curation of Biological Data), both funded by the German Research Foundation DFG.

The Database "The Herpetology Collection at the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart" and – if not stated otherwise – its supporting files have been copyrighted © 2014–2024 by the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart.