Unique and varied collections of 10 million biological specimens covering the whole of Africa south of the Sahara.
COLLECTIONS OF THE ROYAL MUSEUM OF CENTRAL AFRICA
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) is internationally renowned for its expert knowledge of Central Africa and its unique and varied collections in the human and natural sciences.
Most of the collections come from the DR Congo, but they also conserve collections from other countries and even other continents. Since 1960, the collections are created as part of research or study projects in collaboration with universities and museums in Africa. The scope of research is no longer limited to Central Africa, but covers the whole of Africa south of the Sahara.
The Department of Biology of the RMCA is a research and knowledge centre. Researchers manage a large collection of Afrotropical organisms and conduct international research on both specimens in collections and their natural environment in order to gain a better understanding of African biodiversity. They study the taxonomy and phylogeny of different groups of vertebrates and invertebrates and investigate the role of trees and animals in various ecosystems.
The Royal Museum for Central Africa is the custodian of 10 million biological specimens that include:
- Wood: With its 80,000 wood samples from 13,600 different botanical species, the RMCA's xylarium collection is the third largest wood collection in the world. Its specimens come from all over the world.
- Fishes: With 1 million specimens, their collection is the world's largest collection of freshwater and brackish fish from Africa. It contains typical material of a third of the described species of Africa. They also have the largest collection of type specimens from lakes Kivu and Tanganyika, which has been continuously enriched since the museum's inception. In addition, a large more recent collection of a few hundred species from Lake Malawi, the majority of which are undescribed, is available.
- Birds: The collection includes 150,000 bird specimens, such as flat skins, alcohol specimens, mounted pieces and skeletons. Approximately 250 species and subspecies of birds are represented by type specimens.
- Mammals: These collections contain more than 135,000 mammals, represented by skins, alcohol specimens, skulls and skeletons. Rodents (88,000) and bats (18,500) are the largest orders, followed by primates (10,500).
- Reptiles and amphibians: these collections include 41,000 reptiles and 200,000 amphibians (mostly specimens preserved in alcohol, but also skeletons and alizarin preparations). Main origin: DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Togo. The collection contains 182 taxa with primary types, 52 with secondary types, 31 with unspecified type status.
- Insects: The collection contains 6 million specimens. The majority of the insect orders found in Africa are represented. Main place of origin: DR Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. For some groups, the entire Afrotropical region is covered. Taxon lists are available for most groups.
The collection includes several historical and reference collections (including extensive holdings of types).
- Non-insect invertebrates: Arachnomorpha (360 000 specimens & 4000 identified species), Crustacea (58 000 specimens batches, 5 500 identified species), etc.
Type: single-sited infrastructure
Creation date: 1960 (previously: Belgian Congo Museum, 1908)
Access & costs: Please contact the responsible of the collection you would like to visit (see the list of contact persons below).
Links:
- On the collections: https://www.africamuseum.be/en/research/collections_libraries
- Online digitized invertebrates collections: http://digit03.africamuseum.be/allspecimens
- The Department of Biology: http://www.africamuseum.be/research/biology
Contacts:
- For general questions: info@africamuseum.be
- For the wood collection: Annelore Nackaerts - annelore.nackaerts@africamuseum.be
- For the fishes collection: Mathys Rotonda - mathys.rotonda@africamuseum.be
- For the birds collection: Annelore Nackaerts - annelore.nackaerts@africamuseum.be
- For the mammals collection: Emmanuel Gilissen - emmanuel.gilissen@africamuseum.be
- For the reptiles and amphibians collection: Garin Cael, collection manager - garin.cael@africamuseum.be
- For the insects collection: Stéphane Hanot, collection manager - stephane.hanot@africamuseum.be
- For the non-insect invertebrates collections: Christophe Allard, collection manager - christophe.allard@africamuseum.be
Photo credits: Ph.DeGobert