Unlocking the Entomological Collection of the Natural History Museum of Maputo, Mozambique

Abstract

The collections of the Natural History Museum of Maputo have a crucial role in the safeguard of Mozambique's biodiversity, representing an important repository of data and materials about the natural heritage of the Country. In this paper is described a dataset based on the Museum’s Entomological Collection recording 409 species belonging to 7 orders and 48 families. Each specimen’s available data, such as geographical coordinates and taxonomic information, have been digitized to build the dataset. The specimens included in the dataset were acquired between 1914–2018 by collectors and researchers from the Natural History Museum of Maputo (once known as “Museu Alváro de Castro”) in all the Country’s Provinces, with the exception of Cabo Delgado Province.It adds data to the Biodiversity Network of Mozambique and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, within the objectives of the SECOSUD II Project and the Biodiversity Information for Development Programme. This insect dataset is available on the GBIF Engine data portal (https://doi.org/10.15468/j8ikhb). Data were also shared on the Mozambican national portal of biodiversity data BioNoMo (https://bionomo.openscidata.org/), developed by SECOSUD II Project.