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Two new interns thanks to the DSI and HSRC!

The KwaZulu-Natal Museum is overjoyed to have two interns funded for two years by the DSI-HSRC Internship Programme. Muhammad Ally has joined the Natural Sciences Department and Nothando Shabalala has joined the Human Sciences Department. We applaud the opportunities for unemployed graduates made possible through the programme. Another call for graduates should be announced again in 2022, for eligible candidates to gain experience in a range of host institutions and different research fields. Watch the HSRC website for the call!

HSRC

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Rescue excavation of an Early Iron Age site near Umkomaas

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Excavation tea time: The excavation trench showing the shell layer and the partially excavated Iron Age pit (Photo credit: Rosemary Archibald).

In July 2021, residents at the Widenham Retirement Village in Umkomaas alerted archaeologists at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum to pottery and stone artefacts exposed during construction work in the village. An assessment showed that an Iron Age shell midden had been exposed. Pottery finds showed that the site dated to around AD 400–600. The contractor temporarily halted work so that archaeological excavations could take place. Gavin Whitelaw and Ghilraen Laue from the museum’s Human Sciences Department, along with Kefilwe Rammutloa, a visiting researcher from Yale University, spent 10 days at the site extracting as much information as possible before it was destroyed. Many of the Widenham residents were excited by the find and helped by sorting the finds and providing logistical support.

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Gavin Whitelaw directing the removal of the top soil (Photo credit: Rosemary Archibald).

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Widenham Retirement Village residents helping with sorting (Photo credit: Rosemary Archibald).

Kefilwe Rammutloa and Gavin Whitelaw measuring the section profile for drawing (Photo credit: Rosemary Archibald).

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245434674 1892241174306802 6227385790353822999 n

245390974 1892241170973469 7759082280369151147 n

𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗰 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗞𝘄𝗮𝗭𝘂𝗹𝘂-𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗺.

As we were checking the condition of some of the very old material in our collection we came across the first type specimen recorded in the Museum, Ocenebra natalensis (Smith, 1906) which is now accepted as Favartia natalensis (E. A. Smith, 1906).

Originally it was described as a “cotype” and later designated as a lectotype (a specimen designated as the type of a species or subspecies when no holotype was designated by the original author of the name) by Fair, R. in 1976. It has NMSA catalogue number 36 and the type number T479’ The reason why it doesn’t have type number “one” is because the concept of designating type numbers was introduced later than regular catalogue numbers, so it ended up as T479 not T1.

Smith described the species in the Annals of the Natal Museum 1 (38): 1-7, and donated the type series to the museum through his friend an amateur collector of molluscs and books, Henry Burnup who was the first mollusc collector of the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in 1879.

#kznmuseum #molluscs #museumlife #naturalscience

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Unique collections held and curated at the Museum are a useful reference tool that allows monitoring long-term environmental changes in the protected areas of KwaZulu-Natal, when supplemented by the data obtained during our latest fieldwork season.

Interesting observations on introduced snails and slugs have been made recently as part of the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife project on eradication of invasive alien plant species in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park.

https://www.nmsa.org.za/.../360-surveying-ukhahlamba...

In 2001, Dr. Herbert found four invasive alien species “under exotic trees near office building at Highmoor Nature Reserve (Giant's Castle area)”: Cornu aspersum (Müller, 1774), Deroceras cf. leave (Müller, 1774), Arion intermedius Normand, 1852 and Zonitoides arboreus (Say, 1817). Twenty years later, we have revisited that locality and observed some changes in the “alien assembly”. The largest introduced mollusc Cornu aspersum (common garden snail) is no longer found there (possibly because it did not survive sub-zero temperatures during one of the winters at 2000 metres above sea level). In addition to the other three species that have been seen there again, another two alien species Deroceras reticulatum (Müller, 1774) and Vallonia pulchella (Müller, 1774) have been found at exactly the same locality for the first time.

Snails and slugs can easily be distributed with soil and plant material. It is important to record all the localities of each introduced species in order to ensure that they would not spread into the natural environment and would not be transported into other protected areas.

Photos:

Arion intermedius (sub-adult, length ~10 mm).

Deroceras reticulatum (sub-adult, length ~30 mm).

Vallonia pulchella (shell diameter 2.3 mm).

#kznmuseum #mollusc #fieldwork #research

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