| publications annals of the s.a. museum african natural history books and popular publications publications for schools ordering procedure |
| venue hire south african museum planetarium s.a. national gallery old town house bertram house rust en vreugd bo-kaap museum slave lodge groot constantia koopmans-de wet house castle of good hope |
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The
sight of a spider in one’s home elicits varied responses but for
many the immediate questions that spring to mind are “will it
bite?”, “is it poisonous?”, “will it kill me?” To answer such
questions, one needs to know the name of the spider and these days
people expect the internet to provide such information. Iziko
Museums of Cape Town’s Biodiversity Explorer website (
Associate
of Iziko) and get an answer. Norman receives a constant stream of
queries, usually accompanied by digital images, ranging from
requests for identifications through to desperate pleas for help
from people who believe they have been bitten by a spider (it is
often the case that a spider was not the cause). 
Biodiversity
Explorer ambitiously aims to cover all biodiversity in southern
Africa from viruses and bacteria through to mammals. Inevitably, it
is impossible to cover every species, so the focus is on featuring
organisms that people want to know about. Hence, the sections of the
website on spiders, scorpions, birds and mammals are quite far
advanced and for the plants there is a particular focus on plants
one encounters in everyday life such as garden plants, domesticated
plants and weeds. The real fun starts in showing the ecological
relationships between organisms. Hence, a page on the Morning Glory
creeper (Ipomoea) links to the Fool’s gold beetle (Aspidomorpha),
which in turn links to the parasitic wasp that parasitizes the pupa
of this beetle.
The
website was first launched eight years ago, on International Museum
Day (18 May 2000), and has been steadily growing in content and
profile since then. It has recently undergone a major revision and
this year’s International Museum Day serves as an opportunity to
launch this new version. It contains over 5000 web pages and over
4000 images. There are also two large companion sites to
Biodiversity Explorer, one on the wasps of Africa (
through
education, not only through the educational experience of a museum
visit, but through information provided in publications and
websites. Gaining knowledge is empowering and isn’t so much about
learning facts but rather about understanding processes and
relationships. The internet provides a wonderful mechanism for
showing relationships, which Biodiversity Explorer has exploited to
the full. 
come
as a surprise to some that there are literally hundreds of species
of bacteria living in our guts, in our mouths and on our skins
little mites live in the hair follicles of our eyebrows!), most of
them beneficial or inconsequential to our existence. Whether we like
it or not, we are immersed in biodiversity and in our own interests,
we need to understand and appreciate the life that lives in us, on
us and around us.