Le collezioni erpetologiche del Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali di Trento The herpetological collections of the Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali of Trento

The herpetological material deposited in the Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali of Trento includes three different collections. The historical collection is made up of 169 specimens, 150 of them are Reptiles, mostly snakes belonging to the families Colubridae and Viperidae; the rest are Amphibians. Most of the samples have no collecting data, therefore the overall collection has limited scientific value. The local collection includes 159 specimens collected over the last 25 years, two thirds being Amphibians. The herpetology collection of tropical Africa includes about 4000 specimens, mainly collected in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania, (a global biodiversity hotspot) since 1998. The collection is mostly made up of Amphibians (75%) belonging to 15 different families. Taxonomic studies carried out on the collection revealed over 50 species new to science; 11 of them have already been named and described and the related type material is deposited in the collection (9 holotypes and 62 paratypes). The remarkable scientific value of the collection is due to several reasons: the high number of species and endemism of the collection’s area of origin, the representativeness of the collection, which is one of the most complete in the world for its specific area, and the relevance of the papers published on the specimens deposited in the collection.