Mobilizing specimen data on bats and rodents from Zimbabwe

The Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe houses over 80 species of rodents and bats some of which are threatened species or endemic to certain areas. However, their composition, occurrence, and distribution in Zimbabwe still remains unpublished therefore they are inaccessible. The Mammalogy wet collection contains records of about 6000 specimens of rodents and bats preserved in alcohol. To better understand the distribution of bat and rodent species found in Zimbabwe, the Mammalogy staff aims to mobilize over 6000 records from specimens found in the collection and map out the occurrence of these species. Currently we publish about 2800 records. The checklist for all the bats has been published and therefore can be cross-referenced with this occurrence data.