MARQUES ET AL.: AMPHIBIANS AND TERRESTRIAL REPTILES OF ANGOLA 
33 
African institutions and naturalists, especially South Africans, also contributed important 
knowledge of Angolan herpetofauna prior to the eountry’s independenee. During the Harvard 
Peabody Museum’s expedition in September 1951, the Transvaal Museum entomologist Charles 
Koch (1904-1970) collected speeimens of Gerrhosaurus skoogi Anderson, 1916 from the desert 
areas of Namibe Provinee, whieh the south-African herpetologist Vivian FitzSimons (1901-1975) 
used in his study that ereeted a new genus Angolosaurus (FitzSimons 1959; now again eonsidered 
as Gerrhosaurus). Other examples of eolleetors in Angola include Cornelius G. Coetzee (bom 
1931), from the State Museum (now National Museum of Namibia) in Windhoek, who colleeted 
in 1969-1974, and Wulf Haacke (bom 1936), from the Transvaal Museum (now Ditsong National 
Museum of Natural History), who made important colleetions in Malanje, Kwanza Norte, Kwan¬ 
za Sul, Benguela, Huila, and Namibe provinces. Besides two papers by Haacke (1997, 2008) that 
eovered part of his eolleetions, the remaining eolleetions are still unpublished and are deposited in 
the Ditsong Museum in Pretoria and in the National Museum of Namibia of Windhoek, Namibia. 
Despite some important eontributions to the study of other animals groups, sueh as birds and mam¬ 
mals, Angolan institutions, such as the Institute de Investiga 9 ao Cientifiea de Angola (IICA) in Sa 
da Bandeira (now Lubango), the Museu de 
Historia Natural de Luanda (MHNL) and the 
Institute Universitario de Angola (lUA), both 
in Luanda, were never dedicated to the study 
of the country’s herpetofauna. The Biology 
Laboratory of the Museu do Dundo (MD) in 
Dundo, Lunda Norte Provinee was funded and 
managed by the now defunct diamond compa¬ 
ny DIAMANG and represented a elear excep¬ 
tion. Directed by the Portuguese entomologist 
Antonio Barros de Maehado (1912-2002; Fig. 
25), the laboratory promoted an extraordinary 
plan for the study of the natural history of the 
“Lundas” (Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul 
provinees) as well as eontributing to the study 
of other areas in Angola. While the staff stud¬ 
ied some plant and animal groups, visiting 
and/or foreign naturalists studied others such 
as the amphibians and reptiles. The majority of herpetologieal material eolleeted by the MD team 
was sent to the Belgian herpetologist Raymond F. Laurent (1917-2005). Laurent published three 
important papers based on the material sent to him by Barros Maehado. The first two were exelu- 
sively related to material from the “Lundas” (Laurent 1950a, 1954a), whereas the third included 
material from southwestern Angola (Benguela, Namibe and Huila provinees). Based on these three 
works, Laurent added a total of 72 new herpetologieal taxa for Angola, of which 22 were new to 
seienee. The majority of these eolleetions were returned to MD after Laurent’s studies where they 
remain mostly intaet (Ceriaeo and Bauer in prep.). However, some duplieate material cited in the 
first two papers remained in the Royal Museum for Central Afriea (MRCA) in Tervuren, Belgium, 
and duplieate material eited in the third paper remained in the Museum of Comparative Zoology 
(MCZ) at Harvard University, Cambirdge, USA. Part of the snake colleetion was later studied by 
Thys van den Audenaerde (1966). 
Political and social stability in Angola started to degrade in 1961 when oeeasional but violent 
attaeks by guerrillas initiated a war of liberation from Portugal. The war lasted for almost 13 years 
Figure 25. Barros Machado collecting biological materi¬ 
al in Lunda Norte Province (source Museu do Dundo). 
