Reptilia collection of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

The Reptilia collection of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, comprises 1209 accessions, corresponding to 2164 specimens. The majority of the specimens were collected 1980s, after the fire that destroyed the historical zoological collections of the former Museu Bocage in 1978. Several specimens’ additions from the 70’s were entered to the collection after the fire, mostly donated by the museum collaborators and other institutions. The greater number of specimens (largely Portuguese fauna) came from field works and studies by researchers and students from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Other material refers to donations from other European, South American and North American institutions. Recent field work in Africa has contributed with specimens from the former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe and Angola. The reptile collection of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, is the largest in the country, and one of the largest in the world, regarding Portuguese reptile fauna. Several nomenclatural types are housed in the collection, namely, those of: Blanus vandellii (Holotype); Blanus cinereus (Neotype); Trachylepis thomensis (Holotype and Paratypes); Trachylepis principensis (Holotype, Paratypes); Panaspis thomensis (Holotype and Paratypes);and Naja peroescobari (Holotype)