Bird Information System
Records of bird specimens held in museums - all species
The earliest bird specimen collected in Namibia dates from 1775 and since then many thousands of specimens have been collected. These specimens are housed in museums around the world. Records can be useful for many purposes such as comparison of historical and current distributions to provide an insight into changes over time and factors influencing birds.
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This page allows you to search all museum records which have a location. Note that this can be S-L-O-W: if you are interested in a particular species, you can also go to the Bird Information System page, find the species and click on the Description and distribution link.
How to get information on historical records:
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By map location: click on the ? icon on the map and then click/drag on an area to see information on the records for the grids in the selected area.
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By grid reference: in the results grid, type text in the Grid ref box and then click on the Filter icon to filter by grid e.g. type 2217CA to see all records from Windhoek.
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By species: in the results grid, type text in the Species box and then click on the Filter icon to filter by species. Use an asterisk as a wildcard e.g. type *vulture to find all vulture records.
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By date: in the results grid, type text in the Date box e.g. 1962 or 08/1962 and then click on the Filter icon to get results for the selected dates.
Click on any column header to sort by that column, click again to reverse the search order.
Use the Download this report link at the bottom of the grid to save your results.